Hearing fast

I think I have my volume back up to pre-sick levels but that was so long ago that I don't really know what that should be, a month later in the season and more than that much under the legs over the time it took to get out from under the yuck that bothered me for most of July and the first part of August. Now that it's gone I have good legs and sore ears. Volume is what makes me happy and the time I'm getting on the machine is enough to make my ears hurt. Today it's the right more than the left ear. I guess it's from shoving the ear buds so far in to hear my pod that I hurt them after a while but tenintis hasn't entirely eaten away at my aural senses. I still hear the bears and the coyotes outside every night and the cars passing well before they pass. The dull ache matches any tightness on a given day. With only a few tests left this mtb season b/c for whatever reason the mtb stuff ends in September, I would love to have a mix of mtb and cross in the fall the way they do in the east. The ears hurt, I consider new headphones to relieve the pain but I like it too, the legs feel good and the ears feel bad. more of one and less of the other. I am putting the mental keys together to turn the tumblers in the locks, I have all of the keys, i started getting them on the ring not long after the end of cross in December, now I have the pieces to the puzzle arranged from short hours but lots of them. Life isn't always able to allow for 5 hour rides. It all fits together and I have the template to get through the puzzle, either go at it like a bull or more subtle like a antelope. They go uphill better and work in tighter spaces more efficiency, not all that horsepower to slow them down. Less is less. Less is more.