The Second Half

The “dinner” at Chase Field last Thursday was pretty damn cool. They had the food portion set up on the lower level of the ball park, and all the speeches were on the field using the mother f*cking scoreboard for visual aids. The food was a joke, as they served hot dogs and sweet-smelling BBQ pork on enriched white flour buns. I skipped the food, and went for a Miller High Life – in the can. At least those ingredients won’t kill you.

Saturday brought the 2nd running of the Tour de Cure in north Phoenix - Diabetes fundraiser. I left the house at 5:00am – and made it just in time for the start. The gun went off with around 300 riders at 7:30am, and damn if the front of the pack didn’t treat it like a race……. I worked pretty hard over the first 5 miles, made a sweeping left turn with the group I was in, and caught a glimpse of the back of the lead group about ¼ mile up the road. T’was go time. It took me one huuuuge effort to catch on – an all out, legs screaming, heart pounding + one blown yellowish/redish light effort. Once I was on, I recovered, and sat in for the next 55+ miles. Enjoyed the views, the temps, the sun on my skin – ahhhhhh. I didn’t take a single pull in the pack of 25 because there were five or so dudes who wanted to show how strong they were. Fine by me – it’s March, and I haven’t been on a bike in two weeks. I was the definition of a wheel sucking pack rider. We finished the metric in a hair over 2 hours and 45 minutes – a nice pace of 23.5mph through the rolling hills.

Sunday – hiking in Sedona. Total bluebird day – not a cloud in the sky. We took the trails the tourists don’t know and didn’t see more than a handful of MTB’ers over the course of two hours. Water was trickling through the washes, and the red rocks were just spectacular. We stopped by the local hippie joint for some quality eats and ran into some chick with Daisy Duke shorts, but absolutely ripped legs that put Daisy Duke to shame. Her Brad Pitt boyfriend played the part well too. Spiked bangs, trendy clothes, stupid-expensive sunglasses, buff, the whole 9 yards. She walked to her car in the parking lot and it was a Gary Fisher/Subaru team Subaru WRX with a Superfly on the top. Turns out, Dana roomed with her at Sea Otter about 10 years ago when she was just breaking into the Pro game – but she didn’t recognize her at the sandwich shop. World class talent indeed.