A Week Remaining...

Last Friday for the 2012-13 school year.  Kinda poignant, kinda unfocused, kinda already missing the kids (bandits or not!), kinda not looking forward to landscaping my backyard (curses to you HOA), looking forward to having my kids live with me more, kinda not looking to do a workday entering grades and cleaning shop.  Man, my district done wrung out every bit o'work from this kid.  That is for sure.  I earned my moolah, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time teaching and riding with my mt biking kids.

What's next?  More marathon mountain bike racing.  Didn't even get my USAC license.  I probably should for the CX season though; but that's not until September/October I think?

I am soo going to recharge my batteries this summer.

I am soo going to sleep like never before.

I am going to see a former student of mine get married.

I am sooo going to ride Gooseberry Mesa with Karen.

I am sooo going to do homeskillety things with my chilluns when they live with me.

I am soo going to California to see my brother and me Mum (yes, I am English).

I want to see me brah in AZ but do I want to go to AZ and go back to CO then head out again to CA (I think not!)?

My left hand is hypnotizing you!

 Rode with Kevin Saturday.  Got in 42 all purpose miles, mostly off-road.  Just a smidge under 5 hours, averaged nearly 9 mph.  The weather was nice!   Probably got in close to 4k' of climbing today too.  Next Saturday's the Gunnison Growler.  Tried to ride kinda hard today.  Our first of many trails we did was Mt. Falcon then we connected that to LOTB.  On the downhill at LOTB I saw a dude flying downhill and that was it.  I coulldn't let his actions go unchallenged so hit the afterburners to catch him.  We were flying when I caught him.

I guess one of the reasons why I  race is because of the thrill of the chase .  It can involve teammates.  It's basically rolling, road racing, pack mentality, lemming action and who within the group of like looking individuals with nearly the same equipment can impose one's will on you or others?  It's an alpha-thing, which truthfully (or sadly, depending on how you look at it) is a pain and pleasure principle which is a near spiritual cathartic release because you survived (the rate of) attrition.    So the front lemmings-usually where the alphas hangout-dictate the pace and the rear lemmings are at there place because 1)  they showed up late to the event (or had a bad call up) or 2) they are hiding weakness.  The smart ones know that wasting energy is detrimental to winning so they'll wait until initiation-another alpha imposing his shit-on-your-neighbor tactical move before they engage in the ritual of counter-alphaing, or if the pack is too large they'll risk life and limb to duke it out and see who takes the gnarliest sprint line with line stealing and the cutting off of others' lines by posturing with afterburners on full throttle. So, this dude said via his actions, Can you out-alpha me? I apparently have an Id that surfaces when I'm in race mode, and this hubris-type Id surfaces and answered Brah?  Prepare for the commencement of getting owned!  This is when all the Fall and Winter training become a physiological conscientious collective like those fungal spores that can coalesce and become a fruiting body because there's an advantage for a collective diaspora (get it?  spores?  diaspora)-a distribution of their genes-versus going it alone.  My fast and slow twitch fibers said brah, let's burn a match and catch this guy!   Big wheels on my Airborne make applying watts instantaneously responsive.  Since the singletrack was a smidge tacky from the previous rains I was able to hip turn and lean like a fiend to get every little acceleration possible whenever the terrain allowed it as I pedaled through the curves.  Around every little bend, the gap was getting closer, and closer, now I was on his wheel!  Aw deem, a hill's coming up and I rocket past the guy.  He was flying so we both chalked it up to training on the trails.  Okay so this might sound kinda like dick-ish move but I wouldn't have taken the bait if he didn't turn around and accelerate thus making it an official race (damn you Y-chromosome!).

I am not like this when I'm not racing.  In fact I'd like to think I'm a fairly mellow individual.  Just don't put a race plate number on me, a kit, and Airborne 29er underneath me....

That was okay though, a little speed on a long ride doesn't hurt.  Although I am noticing a bit of non-snappiness in my legs when I do the Meridian ($hit on your neighbor organized roadie ride).  The Tuesday I did the mountain bike marathon I got dropped when the hammeroids started attacking.

Once we finished LOTB we had to ride highway 73 to drop back into Morrison.  The residual endorphins from catching the guy made me even hyper-aware of catching slow moving vehicles to draft off on the the state highway going downhill into Morrison.  I was able to catch a draft off of a Nissan GT-R (Skyline) that was going slow because there was an SUV that was going slow in front of it.  I got a couple miles worth of drafting but my gosh those cars are low.  I had to keep my head on the same level as my handlebars to feel the draft.  Once the roads straightened out they got too fast for my 2x10 gear ratio.

We fueled up and went out to Mathews/WinterPark, then onwards to Apex Park.  Climbing was good.  My DS was climbing nicely although there was a Fred whom I passed and proceeded to wheel suck me.  My roadie self was having none of that so I dropped the chain onto a more difficult cog and rode away from him.

We descended Chimney Gulch and fueled up in Golden before our road ride back into Morrison.  We had a nice chat and sit-a-spell moment at the Loaf N Jug.  Kevin, my newbie teammate but longtime friend's really coming along and finding his XC legs. 

Let's see how all of this adds up for the Gunnison Growler.

I need a quiet moment please