A Few Good Weekends
It was mid-January when I received a very long, well-thought out text from a friend. It was the kind of content she would have preferred to send in tiny handwritten letters filling every inch of a carefully selected greeting card. But, sometimes you need to connect in your less-preferred method when there are only so many hours in the day.
I knew instantly, before reading a single world, that I would say yes to whatever I needed to. That if I was getting a text message instead of a letter, there was unexplainable urgency to the matter at hand. She had been planning a bike ride adventure for April. And after getting excited about the journey, she found herself on the cusp of no longer going unless I’d go with her.
Ten days later I received a text from a different friend. She asked if I still wanted to do a race together. Specifically the one in Asheville she’d mentioned a few weeks earlier. We had met running together more than a decade ago, and she needed something to train for to get back in a routine. We’d been talking for years about getting together without our schedules lining up.
I said yes to both adventures. A multi-day point-to-point long distance bike ride through the wilds of southwest Pennsylvania in mid-April. And meeting up in Asheville for a ten-mile race plus time in the woods at the beginning of June. I did the absolute bare minimum in helping plan or prepare for either adventure. But I was in, and they both knew it.
February turned to March, winter gave way to more winter, and training for both adventures didn’t ramp up as I’d planned. Instead I focused on trying cross country skiing for the first time. Then I added a challenging trail half marathon to my spring schedule and dusted off my golf clubs. I embraced every excuse to not ride my bike in the lingering cold and freezing rain.
In March, a different friend told me she’d be moving over the summer. As excited I will be to visit when she lands in her next home, we hadn’t yet explored the mountains together since she’d moved to Denver. So we picked a weekend in May and I booked my plane ticket. We planned on one kind of adventure, and got exactly the experience we both needed instead.
Spring continued and the weather stayed questionable. Suddenly it was April and I still hadn’t ridden my bike yet to test which one I’d want to use. But I picked the bike I always knew I’d pick and my dad tuned it up, bringing it back a week before the ride. I booked our hotel close to the Amtrak station and ordered real cycling shorts. I tried them on once, and decided they’d do.
When I got into my friend’s car that mid-April evening, I had only tested my bike by riding once around the block. I had taken my test spin about two hours before she picked me up. I wasn’t sure how I would feel on the bike or if my gear would be sufficient. But for better or worse, I wasn’t worried about it either. I trusted my dad’s bike tech skills, my friend’s ability to plan, and that I had done just enough to be good company for the ride.
I approached June’s excursion to Asheville in the same way. My jobs were to register for the race, run enough miles that I’d be able to cross the finish line, and book the hotel for Friday night. My friend took care of finding a campsite for Saturday, looked up where we’d go hiking, and checked out where we should go while we were in town. I spent five minutes looking at flights, decided that I’d drive, and called my prep work complete.
This is how I’ve been approaching a lot of things lately. Doing enough research to have an idea of what I’m getting myself into, but not overthinking any part of it. Putting in enough effort that I’m not worried, but generally trusting that I will be able to handle what’s ahead. I’m getting to the starting lines at least slightly underprepared, but incredibly curious to see how it works out.
What started as making time for a few good weekends this spring has trickled into my every day. So far this year I’ve sipped a huckleberry milkshake in Montana and shared stories with strangers in Wisconsin. I went to my cousin’s baby shower in Michigan, had dinner with old friends in Utah, and finally stopped at that weird travel plaza in West Virginia. I’ve tried things I’ve spent years wanting to try, and taken adventures I never knew I wanted to take.
I don’t know that it’s really been that different from how I normally approach life. Travel, family, friends, adventures – it’s not anything new for me. But something about this year so far simply feels refreshing. It feels like I’m soaking it all in in a new way.
If I had to put my finger on it, I think it’s nothing more than I’ve decided not to be too busy for any of it. I haven’t worried about how exactly it will fit into the days and months. But I’ve let the pieces fall into place however they may. It’s been nice, and I don’t feel like questioning it. Instead I’ll just wonder what else will end up on my calendar next.
