I'm about to collapse, all good and well to get me to sleep in time for eighth week of practice period. Yesterday I went for my first ride of the season, riding up to Marin and doing the Paradise Loop in Tiburon. The Paradise Loop is the standard ride, the training ride, the ride everyone knows by name. It's easy, negligible climbing, not bad car traffic. From my apartment, it was a total of 44.12 miles which I completed with minimal stops and completed just under three hours. Still, riding that distance like that on the first outing took it out of me, and I felt it today. I can practically feel the electrolyte depletion. On every hill, I went down to my gramps gear and got on the sidewalk. Mountain bike gramp gears are miracles on wheels when you're totally sapped (I decided calling it the "granny" gear is sexist. Like calling the backseat of a tandem cycle the "bitch seat". When's the last time you saw a guy on the backseat of a tandem? Women should insist on guys getting back there and still calling it the "bitch seat").

So two more weeks of practice period. I'm wondering if I'll feel tempted to start slacking off. Especially since I'm considering doing a three week work-practice period from April 5-April 25 down at SFZC's affiliate monastery down in Tassajara. Questions about my future still abound. You can practically see the question marks floating over my head.