A Whole Lot of Nuttin' Going On!

My semester/year's ending as a high school teacher (I'm still coming back to a job next academic year). That's bringing delayed joy and an inordinate amount of planning in order to execute the worthwhile concepts in a timely manner and to give a final exam twice (not the same): mine and the district's. Lacrosse and soccer's in full swing (both girls have practice every day and my son on Sundays) so my base miles are pretty much non-existent. So how do I get a modicum of self-indulgence (relative sanity)? Oh and I'm also training for a half marathon too in early June; but, this Friday and Saturday I got in back-to-back rides: Friday off-road and today, on the road. Therapeutic baby. Therapeutic. I gotta get it when I can get it (it's probably the same mantra as a HS teenage boy, but for different reasons).
Drove to Maura's lacrosse game which was exciting! The score was tied with 30 seconds remaining and our girl won the face-off, marched it downfield and shot the winning goal. Awesome. Yelled myself into a headache. I wasn't a little league dad or anything but just hollering for our mountain girls.

I was satisfied with my performance up Mt. Falcon Friday. Mt. Falcon is a thousand foot climb contain in three miles where people go there to improve their PR. So if it's a guy, and they see a body up ahead, they'll race you 'til their eyes bleed. I try not to fall into that category but damn my testosterone producing testicles. Damn them! I was just moseying along, going a pretty good clip, listening to my iPod (some mellow Ben Folds tune) when out of the corner of my eye (you ever notice how your hairs on your neck stand up when you're getting eye-balled?) I saw a dude taking a breather on a switch-back and when I got within 100 meters he bolted. He bolted fast because he put a mighty gap on me but dammit I was determined to hunt him down like the dog he was. I placed it under the training category of interval training so let's go sucka! Sho nuff there's this spot of a rock garden that if you don't hit it mountain side and grunt it; or hit it near the precipice with body english and finesse (you have to time the 6 o'clock pedal strokes or your pedals'll hit a strategically placed baby-head), you'll have to dismount and walk it. He tried the near precipice but completely ham fisted it and had to dismount. That's where my 44 year-old arse finessed it and passed him barely breathing and not establishing eye contact (that's the dickhead roadie in me...). Once it leveled out, I put it in the middle-ring and rocked it like a meth addict with a fresh syringe. I was one with my Yeti and when that's the case a mental conduit originates from my bike and attaches to my medulla oblongata. That's when she starts talking to me: telling me to go faster, giving me hints to English my frame to accelerate through twisties, and scolding me when I touch the brakes. I tacked on the Parmalee loop at the top, twisted my fork travel to max and let 'er rip. Nobody else was on this part of the mountain, made it a power workout and kept in the big ring from this point forward. I forgot how steep it was and cleaned a rock chicane that usually makes me unclip one of my pedals. 1.5 hours and 9 miles later I'm back at my truck. Chased down and passed a dual-suspension guy on the downhill on my hardtail Yeti. I'm getting ornery in my advancing years.

Today, after the snow fell and Maura's sweet lacrosse game, I hopped on my road bike and fired-off 50 very uneventful miles in 3 three hours in gusty, cold conditions. I couldn't get the climbing I wanted because where I live it's still hovering around freezing and the roads are not clean. My all purpose miles for this week (which includes my running) is 63. Not impressive but I can eat a hearty Easter brunch tomorrow without worrying about caloric surpluses. For dinner, sweet Melissa made Pad Thai. Yum. Washed it down with Shiner Cheer.

On a musical side note I've been completely smitten by TV On The Radio and Lang Lang's Live In Vienna. If y'all have never heard of TVOTR they are a Brooklyn-based band that has LAYERS of sound. Kinda like the way Radiohead has layers of sound these guys have a very distinct, rock band falsetto harmonizing kind of thing that's so impressively and sonically unique you either love 'em or hate 'em. It's like a wall of sound with their singers busting out a falsetto on normal vocalizations with a boomy bass sound, accompanied by a swinging guitar and rock steady drummer. I have Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes and their latest: Nine Types of Light. As for Lang Lang, not only is he a twenty something prodigy but this is his debut performance for Sony classics and by golly does he perform. The sound dynamics on this live CD (two discs actually) is amazing!!! You can't even tell it's live until the audience starts clapping. His encore is a couple ditties from Frédéric François Chopin and he slays. Chopin's probably my top three classical artists and so I discriminate when people play Chopin. Barenboim, Pollini, Szpilman are three who I think are superb and give me chicken skin and now I add Lang Lang.

Ite den kids, wish me luck on the Santa Fe century. I'ma do it with long time home skillet, Javier de Soto Lambrusco and will crash at his cabin in Pecos, NM due to his largess (minus the condescension).