You go for a ride. This is a Training Ride. You have Goals. You will achieve them by going on Training Rides. You intend to be stronger and better and smarter.

But on this Training Ride, you are not strong. You are not better or smarter, either. You're hurting. You're moving slow. The computer on your bike tells you that you are moving slower than you should be. You look down at your legs--these legs that you have looked at a million times, and you wonder when they decided to mutiny. You think you should've been aware that that happened. You think they would've told you. You thought you'd been pretty good to them.

When you get home, you are wiped out. You wonder what exactly it is you're doing. The time you spend doing this. Where is it getting you? You've spent so much time thinking that of course you would achieve these Goals, that it's only a matter of when and how. But now you are thinking that maybe it's a matter of if. If you will achieve these Goals. What was yesterday a Solid Plan is today a precarious house of cards. It makes you sigh. Loudly.

Now it's the next day. You get back out there. What else are you gonna do? You carved out time for this, you might as well use it. Maybe you just need to re-evaluate. Maybe those Goals are too high. Maybe they're too audacious. Maybe you won't reach them. But you can still ride. It isn't A Ride, but it's a ride nonetheless.

Except on this day, you take the same climb you took yesterday, but today it's easier. It rolls underneath you smoothly. You look back at it, then turn around, and climb it again. You are wondering if it somehow flattened overnight. You look around for construction vehicles. You think maybe there might be impending gentrification and maybe someone came quietly during the night and lopped off the steep pitch of this hill. You climb it yet again to see. It feels good. It feels like the road and your bike and your heartbeat and your breathing and the sound of the tires rolling over the pavement are all instruments in an orchestra and they have just reached a glorious crescendo. You crest the hill and take off down the road. It is paved black top, it is pretty much your version of heaven. It occurs to you as you fly over it that right now, yes, this could be described as hauling ass.

When you get home you write a letter. You don't mail it. You take the pink flower magnet on your refrigerator and you plop it on top of the letter, slightly to the left, so you can read it every time you walk into the kitchen. This is what the letter says:

Dear Self Doubt,
Go fuck yourself.