Post #13 “You Gotta See Metallica Live”

With the fear of giving my brother-in-law Mike credit, a term he once used has stuck in my head for years…the term, “mental midget”.  Mike was an athlete throughout his high school and college days and spent years coaching.  The term was still in the back of my mind when buying my first bike in 2000 when Heather worked at 24 Hour Fitness.  Since then, I’ve put over 70,000 on the bike and despite Mike’s term being intended for his team sport athletes, I’ve learned that even in individual sports being a mental midget will absolutely crush you if you let it.  You can ice a knee, but you can’t ice a psyche.

When I did this same trip in 2018, I happily rolled into Sioux Falls, SD after 3 weeks of hiccup-free travel on a lightweight road bike with skinny tires, a narrow, non-forgiving seat (or as we call it in cycling, a “saddle”) and 22 gears carrying me up and over mountain passes and along miles-long stretches of farm roads.  So many things could’ve gone wrong, yet none did.

In 2018, after the ride into Sioux Falls, a couple of the guides, Blake and Michael, who had learned that I was an aged rocker, asked if I wanted to join them at the Metallica concert in town that night.  Too focused on the next day’s ride, I politely declined.  Not because I thought that three hours in a haze of weed smoke and an ear-splitting cacophony wouldn’t be fun but because I was so hyper-focused on reaching the beach in Portland, Maine.

The next morning after a solid 10 hours of sleep I rolled my bike down through the hotel lobby and out into the 6AM chill.  Both guides were there loading luggage and babysitting a handful of cyclists and at the same time looked at me and said, “You Gotta See Metallica Live”.  

 Mental midget. . . .

If I had gone to the Metallica concert, would it have affected my 125 mile ride the next day?  Probably not.  Do I look back and wish I had gone to the concert with Blake and Michael?  Definitely.

Now I’m back in Sioux Falls and although Metallica isn’t in town, Vanilla Ice is.  Will a future blog post be called “You Gotta See Vanilla Ice Live”?  Probably not.  But since this blog is just a metaphor, for some, that might work just as well.

If you’re thinking about doing it but your head is getting in the way, just remember, "You Gotta See Metallica Live".

Out 


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