The Second Half

A buddy of mine that lives down the street, in the Hospital Hill Ghetto across from Inappropriate Dave (so named because not only is he obscenely vulgar, but he also paints visual pictures of anything remotely disgusting/vile/cynical/ and is sure to offend and even pull the race card as often as I get a face card on my 12-16 hands at a blackjack table with a 6-deck shoe), and Sir Klausington (an ex bike shop owner who is so severely insecure that whenever you’ve done it, he’s done it faster, and if you can fix it, he can fix it better) has a huge opportunity. Said buddy Ellsie, who has been mentioned auspiciously and inauspiciously here – and who is always pining for photo credits and corrections to his posted running/hiking/biking times – has been invited by his employer to run in the 6-day Trans Rockies Challenge. Let’s just say invited means “sponsored” - fully. Yeah baby……Picture six consecutive days of running 20 miles, with an average daily climb of 4,000 feet+. I’d call him a stud but he’d never let me live it down. Thankfully he rides a mountain bike as fast as his 7 year old son, and a road bike like his 5 year old daughter.

So, my little 2.75 hour Sunday morning ride began at 5:30am with temps in the low 40’s. I froze my ass off until I got about 20 minutes in – thankfully you can warm up fast as it’s all uphill for up to 2.5 hours and 3,650 feet of climbing if you want that kind of pain. I chose to climb for about 30 minutes and then headed across the peaks to Snowbowl Road via up and down singletrack and saw nothing more than a small pack of elk and some goofy short-short trail runners (who by the way are horriffic dressers - what is it about trail runners?- with the exception of my wife who was dressed to the 9's in her full coolmax Nike outfit on Sunday), and just an exquisite sunrise that was lighting the trail for me as I headed west. It was a drop in the bucket compared to what Ellsie the Running Man will be tackling in August. However, my little 2.75 hour ride was muy fantastico. I dunno how many miles because I don’t ride with a computer on my MTB – but I can tell you that I arrived home flat-out hammered and content to do whatever the rest of the day tossed my way. What it tossed was about 1,000 f*cking dishes as we seemed to just cook/eat/cleanup all day. It was insane, and by the end of the day I paid myself back with 7/8 of a pint of ice cream in a bowl watching 27 Dresses – a chick flick that actually had some very redeeming qualities for the first hour…..and then like every other movie….it digressed into Hollywood schmutz. D and I about puked at the predictable end.

Anyway – the rest of the weekend was about organizing the garage, playing with kids, a little time at the pool both days, and some good eats. In 2 weeks we’ll be in Minnesota/Canada for 10 days of fishing…..and hanging out on the water drinkin’ Molson’s. No DUI’s on Rainy Lake, in fact they kinda look at you funny if you DON’T have a cooler of Molson’s.