Saturday, September 22, 2007

Playing Hookie


Fat Albert; my bike. Ruby; Jenny's bike. And Coach Jenny.

You might think that working as a writer and speaker, and owning a small business means that your time is your own. No boss. No timecards. No schedule. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

The great part of what I do is that I can do it from almost anywhere, anytime. The hard part is that I end up doing it almost everywhere almost all the time. I'm not complaning, just explaining why taking yesterday OFF was such a treat.

With the summer coming to an end, and the fall marathon season getting ready to fire up, time for riding motorcycles is slipping away. Sadly, here in Chicago, we don't really have a 12 month riding season so I know that sooner or later I'll have to put the bike away, put the battery on a charger, and wait for the first sign of spring.

So yesterday morning, at about 4:30 AM, Jenny and I backed the bikes out of the garage and headed for Door County, Wisconsin. Why Door County? I have no idea. I've heard people talk about it and, at the time, it sounded like a good idea.

The weather changed from warm to cool to COLD to warm to HOT and back. By the time we pulled back into the garage, at 8:30 last night, we'd ridden over 400 miles and were tired but VERY satisfied. And the laptop stayed home on the desk.

What's this got to do with running? Not much, maybe, except that the joy in life for me comes in the balance of things that I have to do with the things that I want to do. There's no physical benefit in spending a day on a motorcycle, but the emotional benefits make it more than worth it.

Today, I'll get out and run.

Waddle on,

John

4 comments:

Lisa Skier said...

Glad you had such a great time. Did my last long run before my taper in San Francisco yesterday and the weather was amazing and the run was 5 minutes faster then my last 20 miler (and it was hilly rather then flat)....can't wait to see you in Chicago

Lisa

Wes said...

Yay! non-running posts are cool too :-)

Joe said...

Wow, I just drove back from Door County on the same day!! I wonder if I saw you, John, with one group of about 8 big touring bikes heading north along the way!!

Door is a beautiful place...glad you got there, sans laptop!!

moretk said...

Being your own boss is a myth. Your boss is whatever corporate entity is paying you.

So cycle on, John. Enjoy your flexible schedule.

See you at Disney with TNT?