Hey Maggot, Give Me 20

I felt like a worthless maggot on his first day of boot camp today. It was the usual routine at work ... put 10-plus hours in, check off to-dos and add more to-dos to the list. Usually by the end of 10 hours my brain starts to ooze out my ears and I'm ready for a distraction. That's where biking comes in.

About three times a week, four if I'm not completely worthless, my co-worker and I put in 20 miles of pedaling through dry desert air and car fumes paradise. It's neat. After 25 minutes of exercising in this stuff your tongue starts to swell like one of those crazy foam animal capsules.

Just as my tongue was starting to swell into an elephant shape I came to a sad realization, I haven't been pushing it hard enough. Lance Armstrong I'm not. I decided it was a good idea to have a little pedal off against my co-worker Hinzy. You could say I'm at a distinct disadvantage riding a mountain bike versus his road bike, but that shouldn't be an excuse.

We raced up one of the lovely smog hills here and I nearly spit out a lung. Thankfully that swelling elephant tongue of mine did a tremendous job holding my lungs in. I thought I might have seen Jesus at the top of that hill, and He was glorious. Needless to say, I didn't win and was still just the worthless maggot set for latrine duty. I thought I had Hinz soundly beat three-quarters of the way up the hill but I faded faster than the brakes on my truck during rush hour. Hinzy passed me toward the top and managed to put two bike lengths on me. It was at this point that the remaining spit on my elephant tongue turned in to drool on my face.

It took 3 miles to start breathing normal again and get back into a rhythm. I'd like to blame my pathetic defeat on the smog / mountain bike but in reality it was because my legs got caught on my skirt at the top of the hill. Hinzy commented, "You gonna cough up one of your ovaries." It's never cool for somebody to call out your manhood, especially a co-worker. I decided I better man up and pretend my heart and lungs were still somewhere in my chest and not rolling down the hill screaming mercy.

Moral of the story, I'm still not in shape and I need to get over the mental aspect telling me I can't go faster and I can't push up the hill in top gear. There's no point going 20 miles if you aren't pushing hard for at least 15 of them. It's time to man up. Before I know it I'll be 40. And I think the 40-year-old version of me would kick my ass for not trying harder. I've only got one more year of the 20s, it's time to ditch the ugly body for a beach body.