I’ve been walking Bromont over at the Menninger Foundation grounds the last few days. The Menninger Foundation was one of the most prestigious psychiatric facilities in the nation up until 10 years ago when they closed up shop and moved to Houston Texas. Lots of famous people have come and gone through Topeka because of it. It has been a part of my life from a very young age. I grew up with a ton of the Menninger kids. I was even college roommates with Fritz, during my short stay at KU.

Anyway, it was strange walking around over there while Bromont was running crazy in the woods. The place is so barren. 10 years ago it was nearly a thriving little city and now just a grassy field. A local hospital, St. Francis, bought the grounds and intended to build their new facilities there. I think a twist in the stock market might have put that on hold, but they did raze all the buildings, but one.

I graduated high school early. I lost interest in it nearly before it started. I used to skip out whenever a class would be doing library study, or anything when I wouldn’t be missed, get on my bike and ride over to the Menninger Campus and train. It is on a hill and there was a hard mile circuit there. Sometimes I would throw my bike over the fence and do hill repeats on a paved road that went down to the river. I’ve ridden up and down that road 1000’s of times. Walking there, the road is only gravel, just a few patches of asphalt here and there. It is amazing how fast the planet reclaims what is its.

Bromont and I got in the van and drove to Texas. I’m going to be installing, in theory, a ceiling fan at Sue’s mom’s in Richardson, plus I wanted to fix a post of the fence I built last year that has moved, then go down to Austin and put in a dog door for my friend Ann. She got a new puppy and wants it able to get in and out of the porch. Plus, obviously train. I’m kicking around maybe trying to race a local training race this week, we’ll see.

I went for a 15 mile spin last night when I arrived. Richardson has changed too, but exactly the opposite. It takes forever to get out of town here. When I first came here in the 80’s, it was the country. Now it’s an hour to get out to the country. I rode by The Richardson Bike Mart. It was closed, there were no cars in front. I might be wrong, but I believe it is the largest, by square footage, and probably sales, of all bike shops in the country, most likely the world. I first met Jimmy Hoyt, the owner of the store when I rode from Schwinn and he was a Schwinn dealer. It was a little shop, nothing at all like he current business.

I guess this is just a part of life. I usually don’t attach much emotional feeling to changes initiated by humans. But, the stark different between the Menninger Campus just disappearing into a field and then the next day coming down to Texas and seeing what was just a field, become landlocked and the center of urban sprawl, got me thinking. All this change is sort of disturbing for some reason. It seems so wasteful. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m just in one of those moods.

The last remaining building on the Menninger Campus.

What it looks like now.

10 years ago it looked like this.

Richardson Bike Mart. It is huge.

The road where I did intervals in high school.

Just a few spots of asphalt left.

Bromont looking all proud and happy after running around Menninger’s.

His normal position driving to Texas.

Stanley and Lulu on an outing.

I found this bird flopping around on my walk at Menningers yesterday.

Boromont was concerned of course.

I took it here and the lady there does bird rehabilitation. She said it was a full grown Barn Swallow. It had a broken wing. She said she could probably fix it. That surprised me, but I gladly left it with her.

I took this out of the car window driving out of Topeka. It is finally Spring.

This past weekend was the Joe Martin Stage Race. And also the Capitol City Omnium up in Iowa City. I’ve done both of these races tons of times over the past few decades. I believe the first time I did Joe Martin was 1979. I finished 2nd in the hillclimb to John Howard when I was a first year senior that year. I finished 2nd overall there twice, once to Jason McCartney and then once Thurlow Rogers. I won the Iowa City Criterium in 1983, I think, then again a couple years ago. Anyway, those results don’t really matter.

What matters is the way I’m feeling, being sort of left out of the loop of bike racing. Catherine and my guys wanted me to go with them to Iowa City this weekend. They thought it might be fun for me. It would have been torture. I don’t mind watching races I feel like I should be racing when I can’t, but it would be awful watching races that I feel that I could do physically, but the risks are too high. I realize it is self imposed, but I also realize that if it was maybe as few as 5 years ago, I’d already be racing by now.

The reason I’m not racing is because of the risk reward ratio. I can intellectually understand that completely. I think I can do just about everything I need to do to race road bikes. The problem would be if I fell. I don’t think my shoulder is anywhere nearly strong enough to be able to handle a big hit. I think the surrounding muscles need to be a lot stronger so when I do fall, which bike racers always do, my shoulder doesn’t explode. I have no intention of ever doing this surgery again. If it was something as easy as a broken collarbone or separated shoulder, I would be already racing. But this surgery, and the recuperation from it, is way too intense to be risking for a couple races.

Like I stated above, intellectually it is a no-brainer, but emotionally it is trying. I know that it is going to take months for my arm to heal properly now. And I can tell you that there is no way that I’m waiting months to race. So I ask myself, why not just start earlier? The only answer I have for that is that my arm has been improving in leaps and bounds the last couple weeks. I’m doing arm curls with a 5 pound weight now. I know that sounds silly stupid, but considering a couple weeks ago I could barely lift my arm up, it is a vast improvement. I’m thinking if I can put a little muscle back on and gain some strength, then it will come quicker and quicker.

Okay, I’m just kind of venting here. Frustrated. I hope/plan to be racing by memorial day. I thought about maybe trying to race in Austin tomorrow night, but know that isn’t a good idea. I’m holding off for another week and I’ll keep trying to do that a day at a time. Eventually I’ll crack, I know it. But, you can’t fight you’re own personality forever.

I did have the good fortune of finding this small turtle on the bike path on the way to White Rock. I dropped him into the creek.

I’m doing a little manual labor here, building up the shoulder muscles.

This is a local Dallas suburb high school football stadium. It is bigger than the one at the University in Topeka.