Ha! And people think endurance cycling is masochistic!!

I'll tell you what is masochistic!  Being a passenger on a commercial airline for 3 hours is masochistic. 

I once had the opportunity to spend more time than you would believe in a maximum custody federal penitentiary (in my early 20's).  (Graduate school was worse, by the way)   I'd do it again do it all over again to avoid last year's commercial flights to and from Italy.  On the way back I was wishing I had followed in Savonarola's footsteps in Florence!

I several times have raced on a bike for 24+ hours through the broiling southwest deserts and the teeth chattering freezing cold, up 15% grade mountains and down death-defying mountain switchbacks.  I'd do FIVE such events in order to avoide being a passenger on a commercial airline for 3 hours. 

The round trip this past week from Chicago and Phoenix and back had me so scrunched up that at one time I had the tray in front of me down and my legs crossed over it just to get them stretched a little ... and I'm not a short guy with skinny legs.  I must have looked like Mahatma Gandhi if he had done weight training.  Lucky I didn't get arrested by TSA for suspicious behavior. 

In my profession I have access to the kind of pharmaceuticals that could render me the consciousness of a celery stalk for 3 or 4 hours without any long term detriment.  For THAT I don't have the (choose one:) a) courage; b) stupidity; c) self-hatred; d) intelligence; e) forgiving self-love. 

I guess I could write myself a `letter from a doctor' that informs the airline staff that I have an `anxiety disorder' about flying so that they assign me a spacier bulkhead seat lest I erupt into an extended panic-induced screaming jag at 35,000 feet.  But ...

I guess I could pop to pay for a first class seat.  Though I'm certain that my blue collar class consciousness would probably have me eating a few cans of beans and a box of prunes a few hours before the flight just to make my fellow first class aristocrats gag every time they take a breath for 3 hours.  It'd almost be worth the criminally high airfare just to commit a high altitude revolutionary act.  WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE.  YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT A FEW HOURS OF SLEEP WHILE LAUGHING YOUR ASS OFF.