Make up your mind and get it done

Now we all know that i have known the Enmark for a while now, he helped kick my ass through many days on the bike in college, and we have been more than happy to return ass kickin favors over the years. He has always had his funny wisdom, but a lot of times it just makes sense.
I would loath the spring days of back to back to back to back 4 hour days trouncing everyone in the group day after day after day. Boss of the Burghs was a common sufferfest that i endured, mostly because i was smart enough to stay behind him and not challenge him over the top. If all i did was follow, one chump after another would try to roll the top with Davey and chump after chump would get popped off. I recall one day quite fondly that i was not feeling too spunky and simply declared "just follow him and it will get easier.. there are a thousand of these rollers out here and he will beat you on EVERY one of them". Now that you see the groundwork of life at Ball State, you will understand that at this time i was rocking out a very sweet mullet and did not have a very strong work ethic. I would constantly cry for "Dave can we go easy today???" The response was a stern east German sounding answer of "no easy day - go hard every day.. Next interval 2 hours on 2 minutes off" Now, funny as it may have been, the truth was we didn't have too many recovery days at BSU, but the workload we put in there certainly prepared me to make some major jumps in my cycling post college. I found a solid balance of good recovery days going SLOW, and some great intensity days going VERY FAST. This gets back to the wisdom that few cyclists grasp of going easy enough on their easy days, and hard enough on their hard days - most fall into the dumb dumb sped mentality of going too hard on easy days and not giving it 100% on hard days. They could never make up their mind to get it done.
Now given the hundreds for hours i have spent either next to or behind the Enmark - we have often tried to figure out what it takes to be the guys that can get to the finish in good position to unleash what god has given us - fast twitch baby!! Amongst some of the wisdom we have shared, the one thing that has always resounded in my head is that "you just have to make up your mind and put yourself there... just turn your brain off and ride". Now as straightforward as this sounds - its brilliant. How many of us have "saved something" because it was a training ride we had to look good on and refused to lay it all out their to better ourselves. How many of you can willingly turn yourselves inside-out on a regular basis for the sake of getting better???
A few that know me say i do it often - i say i do it occasionally and not often enough because i never made my mind up to do it.
A new page has turned with a family, new job, less time, blah blah blah. The bottom line is i have made a conscious decision to start riding my bike to work - to start eating less - to start getting up even earlier when necessary to get myself some fitness that i might be proud enough to be able to race some this year - and maybe, just maybe have a return to form for 2008. Its a long term plan, and we all know its easy to loose sight of those things out there. But i have made up my mind, and i have a group that every Wednesday is more than happy to facilitate me turning myself inside out to get to the finish. They are all smart enough not to drag my fat ass to the finish - because fast twitch beats out fat gut over 200m any day of the week.
So my goal is to loose some gut, turn myself inside out enough times to get to the finish, and to once again make up my mind to be the guy in the last kilometer of a race that knows all it takes is a bit of luck from here and i can post a V and prove to myself that the last 2 years has all been worth it for the sake of family, and that my crazy hobby can be back on track.