**No photos in this one, just writing.  (Except one photo of Travis!)

I don't think I have really written anything about all those duathlons I was diving into, so I thought I'd just touch on how that's been going.

Everything started out really well.  I had good underlying inspiration leading me to thinking up this new little challenge for myself.  That made things pretty easy as far as they could be.

Sure, it was a long grind each day, but I don't mind that.  I actually really like it.  Each time I get out givin' 'er when my body is in somewhat stable condition I get thrust back into that lifelong love affair...the love affair that is wholesome and enriching that never lets me down:  Pounding on my body!

I love everything there is about beating my cardio to a pulp...making my lungs wanna jump out of my chest and punch me in the face for the pain I put them through.  When the shin splints set in and my muscles burn in ripped and torn torture I get taken to a place in heaven.  Feeling my eyes constantly sting from sweat dripping into them in a steady stream is my comfort zone.  The place where I get settled into bliss is when I feel crusty salt on my forehead when I go to uselessly wipe the sweat from my brow.  That little bit of crustiness is right damned fuckin' fantastic!

In the early days of my duathlons I was brought to this place, and it was really great...really, really great!  The pounding and exhaustion doesn't matter at that point, because it's the place I love so much to live.  

The strange thing is that even though I am in that bliss state, with every painful stride on the road, or every turn of the pedal, I can't help but to think about what I would have really been able to do...what could have been!  

I miss 'really running' so bad.  So.  Fuckin'.  Bad!  It puzzles me why the majority of people hate it so much.  It is the easiest thing in the world to do and it does amazing things for your body.  I desperately wish I could trade places with any regular person who hates running so I could use the legs they don't appreciate.  I think about that every day...especially when I am out doing my gibbled form of running that I have been forced into.

A few years ago, Travis had said to me,

"There's no coasting when you're running!" 

**Travis being awesome!

Travis is a local mountain biking legend, and I always found it a bit odd when he would get out running, because you never really think of him without a bike glued to his ass!  Those were such simple and profound words though...words that inevitably roll through my mind when the real grind sinks in during my runs.  "Yup...yer fuckin' right Trav!"  Then it's one foot in front of the other from there.

Taking pause in thought as I write that, I'm starting to feel a bit sad as reality to where I am at now is sinking in like an anchor to my fleeting thought of my functional body.

For the past couple months now, my body has been breaking down a bit again.  I'm back into that pain that is impossible to explain.  Sitting has been hurting me so much.  My tailbone is in agony, but that is the easy thing to explain about sitting.  Words are elusive for everything surrounding connective tissues.  (All through my legs!)  The tops of my hamstrings make me constantly want to scream from how bad they hurt.  Sitting on them makes it even worse.  

Trying to get in and out of a chair is a very challenging thing.  My hamstrings don't want to support me to lift me up or set me down.  I have to struggle to get up using my arms to push me, and I lower myself to a point where I finally just drop into a chair.  I grimace in pain that's written all over my face.  It isn't something that can be hidden...not that I really need to or try to.

The thing is that all the pain of sitting gets washed away though because it isn't where the real pain resides.  As much as I hate it, sitting is the easy part, it's standing that is the hard part!  All the chaotic pain in my hamstrings and connective tissues doesn't want to allow me to hold myself upright.  I'm so weak and unstable when I stand because of the mutiny my hamstrings have thrown against me.  It drives me nuts, but even still, they are not my real weak point!

The connective tissues in my lower quads feel like they are on fire.  The nerve endings feel like zillions of tiny little poison dipped daggers are constantly stabbing me.  It is excruciating!  It all starts at my knees and travels most of the way up my quads.  I can barely keep it together because it hurts so bad.  As I eluded to above, the good thing about it is that it takes my mind off of my hamstrings, tailbone, and other issues.  

(The big tendons in my groin are totally fucked too, and my chest has been having one of my months long fake heart-attacks again!  My shoulders are killing me as well.)

When I have been on a big collapse for a long time (years) and then my body kinda loosens its grip, it's kind of amazing how fast complacency will set in with feeling kinda OK.  As fast as I can get used to it, I still am not unaware of it and not appreciative of being able to function somewhat the way I like to.

I never know when my body is gonna start being an over the top piece of shit, so I try to go for it as much as I can whenever I get the chance, hence my little challenges I put together for myself, which brings me back to where I started yet.

Now that I have filled in a bit as to what my body is doing I think it can lend some context to what it is I have been dragging myself through to knock off these duathlons.

The combination of my hamstrings and quads, and the connective tissue problems all over the place has made it near impossible at times to even move my legs.  Those fuckers do not want to work.  I don't have any real lift or push from them.  If stairs are my enemy, try to think what it is to push down on pedals constantly.  

I am too unstable to stand up and ride, so I have to sit; but sitting hurts so bad in a comfort-y chair that you need to unlock the depths of your imagination to draw a picture of how grueling it is to sit on a hard-ass little bike seat.  Add to that all the bumps in the road while combining the motion of having to push down on pedals with legs that don't want to work.

I feel every little bump rivet through my entire body making my spine catch on fire while it travels up to find its rest in my skull.  Then the head aches sink in.  That old shitty nemesis of the metallic taste that can appear in my mouth from the pain in my spine loves to drop in from outta nowhere to really piss me off.

All of that, I can't do anything about...it's my gnarly-ass hernia that I have to pay attention to and hold in with one of my hands.  I'm too unstable on my bike to ride with one hand though, so I just gotta suck it up and toughen up...grind it out!

There is nothing fun about my bike right now.  I actually hate.  It's tearing me to shreds and driving me insane!  I desperately just want to dig in, but my body won't let me.  I hate it!

It is the run where I have had to try to find some kind of solace, but I can barely move my legs, especially when they have had an eternal flame of gas and matches put to them so they are shrouded in firey flames non-stop.  I can't even stretch my legs out straight in bed again, because of the way my hamstrings are contracting again.  It can take all my concentration to walk, so running, or my version of pretending to run is near impossible.

As I deal with my legs, spine, and head aches, etc, I still have to hold one hand on my stomach to try to combat my bulging hernia.  It hurts my arm to hold it like that, and for my free arm that has the natural swinging motion, well, my chewed up shoulders took care of anything good within that.

Layered on top of all the pain in every part in every way in my body is the exhaustion.  There truly are no words for that.  It's just something else all together!

I'm such a fuckin' mess, that there is no way I should be doing any of this, but I'm still trying.  Needless to say, there have been a lotta missed days of these duathlons, but I am trying.  I am still looking ahead, but with the snow coming soon, and the way my bike is treating me, I will have some decisions to make.  

I don't have the stability to ride in the snow this year, so if I have to bail on my bike, it will mean one of two things...

1:  I set my bike up on my winter trainer and push it as far as I can

2:  I bail on bike all together and do half marathons on the road instead

It doesn't matter what choice I make.  Either way I am fucked, but I still gotta try.  Not trying isn't good enough.  Not trying is when I feel like a failure.  I'd rather try with everything in me and have a complete collapse than sit on my ass like a piece of shit and not do anything.  I just can't live with that failure inside me because it is worse than anything my body can throw at me.  Fuck that shit!

So...despite several lost days, and the thought of layered depths of torture that I go through, I'm still gonna drag myself out there to keep pluggin' away as much as I can.

I define failure not as a lack of success, but rather a lack of trying, so I am gonna do everything I can to come out on top of the blood war fight I have to contend with to transcend what that all means!

**I was looking through Aszjeca's Halloween series of photos, and just started writing this in mid-thought...all in one shot, unedited and raw, as is the way I will often write.

#1
"Neon Skull"

It's not even just about what she does with her skills, there is just something about the way Aszjeca captures her creations in how she poses in her photos.  They're not just straight photos of the make up and then done, she knows how to bring them to life even more by adding other layers of depth. 

#2
"Snake Emoji's"
(This is the photo that put my mind into writing mode)

I haven't read the original thing I wrote about Aszjeca last year since I did it.

(www.stevearchdekin.com/home/the-many-faces-of-aszjeca)

I kinda just write and move on.  I do believe I said something along the lines of me not being a make-up kinda guy.  I love natural beauty and don't think it should be covered up.  Aszjeca is the exception that makes me a total hypocrite though, because what she does is unreal!!

After seeing her Halloween series this year I kinda got sad that it was over.  It was then that I realized that Aszjeca is my favourite artist in this area.  There is a very deep and rich community of artists around here, and I don't want to disrespect any of them because this place has some damned talent...my goodness does it ever have talent, but she is on a different level.

Aszjeca's skills are off the charts fantastic, and so is her imagination for what she comes up with to create.  She never ceases to blow my mind that way.  The thing that takes it further though is that extra layered depth she gets through knowing how to capture each moment in a photo.

It may not seem like it to many, but I am a very artsy person, and in anything I do I pour everything I have into it, and look for as many ways to add layers of depth as I can.  I stretch my imagination beyond what I know to do.  I venture into the unknown through my art, quite often by mistake, but I love the pursuit of uniqueness as it is often the thing that drives me. 

It's in that realm of thought where my mind goes when I see the way Aszjeca captures her creations...whether that be through wearing a wig, or onsie lookin' thing, the way she has her hair, or just through the way she poses.  She brings in several aspects of art all at once, and it is just so damned mind blowing.

The thing that is even more excellent is the way that once she is done, she cleans it off and that's that!  I liken it similarly to Buddhist Monks doing those absolutely stunning sand mandalas.  Their creations are so gorgeous, and leave one completely in awe.  Then once they are done, the monks just sweep up the mandala...and that's that!  Countless hours just gone.  I know those mandalas are all about the journey, and not the destination; but the odd time I will think about that likeness between Aszjeca's art and that of a Buddhist Monk's sand mandala...a stunning piece of work that gets washed away.  It all seems crazy, but it is really just wrapped in brilliance.

Within the notion of her art, the simplest thing I can say is that I am a guy who straight-up doesn't like make up, but I am always looking forward to what she is gonna do next.  Aszjeca is just that fuckin' good!

Yesterday (November 2nd) I sent her this message:

"I'm assuming your Halloween series is over now?  You gonna do a Christmas one?"

She told me she is for sure, so stay tuned 'cause Christmas is coming fast!

Here is Aszjeca's info again!

Her page on Younique Beauty Products.  (She has been killing it with this stuff!):
ywww.youniqueproducts.com/alb/products/landing#.W-DcJ-JRc2y

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/aszjecalorraine/about?lst=100008878053023%3A717307491%3A1530755378

Instagram:
www.instagram.com/alburden/

Pinterest:
www.pinterest.ca/alburden/

Youtube:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCqtViuB09v_xE1XstwwPfJw

Aura Spa & Salon at The Hume Hotel in Nelson, BC, Canada:
www.humehotel.com/spa/

Bonus photo she posted beginning of November...

"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground ✨"  - Aszjeca