What's Important?

For years it was being quick on a bike and living hard and fast for the moment. It's taken two-plus years without the bike to peel away dozens of onion-like layers to reveal what was at the core of that obsession with cycling, and why it became so easy to resort to drastic measures to stay competitive. It's also more clear to me why the thought of leaving the sport for a normal job (if you can call being a diplomat or a spook "normal") was so unthinkable...and something so scary to contemplate. Who says running away has to be done à pied?

Perhaps more on this to come sometime in the future, either in this blog or a book. But until then - stay frosty. I'm off to Ohio tomorrow to visit a sick relative and pass spectrally through my old, old 'hood.