I JUST ATE CEREAL WITH POWDERED MILK...I DON'T RECOMMEND IT.

As usual, I need to go grocery shopping.

I'm back home after having some really screwed up dreams on the plane...of course ones about the plane crashing, but also weirder things that I can't even really describe.

Anyway, it's nice to be home. I'm not looking forward to being back at school and dealing with everything I had failed to accomplish over the last month, but it's still good to be in my own apartment and sitting in my own bed.

Being really and truly away for a week made me realize how unsatisfied I am with my life here. I don't like my classes and I don't have any friends that I can count on. The flute stresses me out and training has become a chore. So I need to take a step (or a leap) backwards and figure out exactly what I'm doing, and how to fix the stuff that just plain sucks.

Of course, everything is going to start up again tomorrow and I'll barely have time to unpack before my first spinning classes and rehearsals. It's so easy to get completely buried underneath all the CRUD; I'm going to try to take it easy this week - I need to get a lot of stuff done, but only one thing at a time so that I can do things well.

So, I biked a crazy number of miles over the past week. I had never even biked for 7 days in a row before, and I managed something like 518 miles over 8 days...

Day 1- 33m to the cactus park
Day 2- 88m from Tucson to Tombstone
Day 3- 77m from Tombstone to Wilcox
Day 4- 56m from Wilcox to the Chiricahuas (the wheels fell off on this day - the ride was supposed to be 91m, but I bailed on the last couple of sections), 4m run
Day 5- 79m from Wilcox to Tombstone
Day 6- 52m from Tombstone to Bisbee and back (cut this ride short too - it could have been something like 86m - but it was an optional route, and a lot of people did the trip I did - I still managed 2 hard core climbs)
Day 7- 100m from Tombstone to Tucson, with 8m around Tombstone before breakfast
Day 8- 6m run and 33m to the cactus park again

The only day I was really disappointed in myself was on Day 4. I just gave up; it was a really hard ride, and going home would have been uphill into a headwind...I rationalized stopping by saying I needed to be able to make it through the rest of the week without blowing up, which is true, of course...but still, I could have finished. So, I made myself go for a run when I got back to the hotel. Running at 4500 feet of altitude? Not all that fun. My legs felt fine, but my breathing was totally spastic.

The rest of the week, I pushed myself. Like I've said repeatedly, I'm not all that fast. But, by the end of the week, I could climb the mountain without crying and manage to stay on the wheels of people who were specks in the distance on the first day. So, I'll keep working and one of these days, I'll be a strong rider.

And you know what? 518 miles over mountains in the desert isn't exactly weak. It's just perspective, I guess.

So, that was bike camp. I'll definitely be back next year...I already checked out my Spring Break dates and what week I'll be able to attend. It's so tempting to get up and leave all the complications and stresses of New Jersey and school and just be on the road all the time...but eventually the crap would catch up with you, and it's nice to have the road as a place to escape.

And this summer? 9 weeks of just riding and seeing the country from a bike? I can't freaking wait.