Steve Tilford

Molly O. has a track on her new album called Imaginary Lines and while I’ve been skiing I’ve had plenty of time to think about how we all restrict our potentials by making arbitrary decisions or restrictions on what we think we can, and thus, will do.

What initially got me thinking about this was while I was skiing I ran into a friend who said he pretty much quit riding, and for sure, racing because he crashed hard over the summer. He was knocked out for around 5 minutes and had a neck injury that kept him out of work for 5 weeks. Fortunately, he is fine now.

He was saying he was envious about how resilient I seemed to be and was very complimentary on that subject. Anyway, I told him that I didn’t really feel that resilient nowadays, but I’ve experienced enough to understand that that being hurt is part of sports. And especially cycling.

I do understand his decision, but thought about it for a day or two now and have to disagree with it. I’ve been hurt a bunch, obviously, though out the years. I definitely don’t heal as quickly as I used to, but I can’t let that stop me from doing the things in life that I feel are important and rewarding.

I got to thinking back through my life and thought that I’ve been hurt pretty substantially multiple times. I broke my collarbone the first time I left the state and went up to Superweek to race, when I was 14. I was so green that I drove back to Kansas, saw an orthopedic surgeon and then drove straight back up and raced Nationals the next week.

When I was 25, I collided into a car at 100km/hr and broke just about everything, plus was knocked out for a couple hours. All I could think about was if I could recover in 10 weeks, in time to race the Coor’s Classic in August.

And it just kept going every few years. If I would have let the initial big crash/concussion draw that imaginary line, then I would have missed hundred of thousands of experiences. Many that there would be no way I could have experienced through any other avenue.

And these lines we draw or restrict ourselves by, doesn’t always only occur in sports. We do it in all aspects of our lives. I run into people all them time that have hardly ever travelled 100 miles from where they live. I ask them about if they’ve ever been to California, or Europe and they say, “Oh, no. I can’t imagine doing that.”

It doesn’t even cross their minds the options they have just there, right in front of them, waiting to be experienced. And we all do it. We limit our options and experiences by these imaginary, completely made up pre-concieved notions, that don’t have any base of accuracy, because we have no experience, so essentially we are ignorant.

When great things happen, either personally, or on a bigger society basis, it is usually done when we’ve stepped over our hypothetical, imaginary lines and allowed these things to happen. So next time you’re uncertain, maybe just take the plunge, and see where it takes you.

Track 8 is Imaginary Lines, but the whole album is great.

Yesterday was pretty cold. Like nearly all day below zero. It was -15 when we finally went to bed last night. We kind of just hung out most of the day, but couldn’t stand it after a while and decided to go ski under the lights at around 5 pm, which was after dark. We drove over to OO where there is a 4 km loop lite.

Bill, Catherine and I got all dressed and took the plunge. It was below zero and a pretty big reality check the first couple kilometers. It is so strange how your hand and face can be so, so cold, like enough that you are almost panicking to get back to warmth, then all of a sudden, something like a switch clicks and you get blood flow and it is better.

Bill did say that the tip of my nose was turning a little white after the first lap. I just covered it up with my glove and breathed into my palm and it cleared up. I had my face covered with Vaseline, which is usually enough to stop that.

Anyway, breathing air at those temperatures is alittle tricky. I don’t think I have much of a problem of exerciese induced asthma, other than I’ve went to at least two doctors that have done tests and say that I do “suffer” from it. I remember that when the Olympics was in Sarajevo, I heard that something like 80% of the athletes were using albuterol, which I thought was absurd.

Then this study from a doctor in England said that 70% of the swimmers he tested had exercised induced asthma and that 33% of the riders of Team Sky Professional Cycling Team did too. That is compared to 8-10% of the normal population.

I can understand the swimmers and the chlorine in the air messing with lung function. I don’t like that myself, so it seems right. I’m not sure about the cyclists. It seems like we, as cyclists, get outside and breathe pretty good air most of the time. At least that is my goal. Of course there are many times that the air isn’t so great.

I’d say the worst air I’ve ever raced in was in Shanghai China. At the end of the first stage of a 5 day race I did in China, I was curled up in a little ball, coughing and generally in enormous pain from lack of oxygen. But that was something that everyone experienced, but maybe not to my extent.

Anyway, I wonder if the doctor did a bigger study, with more sports involved, what the difference would be percentage-wise. Because it’s 2X as many swimmers, percentage, than cyclists having the issue. And if winter sports, such as crosscountry skiing, have an 80% rate, then it has to have something to do with air the cold temperatures.

Anyway, I don’t plan to ski much today either, with the high barely cracking positives. We heading to Minneapolis for a little road trip. I’m going by to visit Pat and Gwen to look at renovating their bathroom while their in Australia or Spain or whatever. Dennis has to get his Audi wagon serviced and wants to go by Ikea and get a couple screws from something.

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Yearly Archives: 2014

Imaginary Lines

-15 Degrees / Can you say Exercise Induced Asthma