Survival of the unfittest

Bike practice has been few and far between since early October, and I paid the price last Saturday at the Dawn til Dusk event at the McDowell Mountains. I raced down to the valley on Friday, attended a mandatory work party for our owners until 12:30am, scrambled to catch some sleep, then out the door at 5am on Saturday morning to drive over to the race which started at 7:13am. Goooooooooo! Famous last words were “I’m just going to take it easy at the start since it’s a long day”. Nope. Some local Flagstaff towners were drillin’ it so I joined in.

You know you know you’re fucked when it’s 68 degrees out and you’re chilled to the bone from your effort. I went way over redline on lap one, and sat in our campsite knowing the rest of the day was going to suck. I managed to tack on two more 15 mile laps, and after the 3rd, I was done. My thighs felt like they had vices on them, and women, children, unicycles, were passing me – at least in my mind they were. One guy who had no business passing me, did in fact pass me, and as he went by he said something like “just cruising along”. I took it personal and fired back “fuck off”. Ya think I have issues? He just kept on riding because….. I realized he had headphones on. I was ready to throw down bikes and fight. How great would that headline have been? “Two 40 year olds throw down at local endurance event over 20th place. Both end up covered in cactus and in the ER with lacerations and crushed pride.”

I sat down in a camp chair at 2pm and didn’t get up for an hour. Talk about an ass-handing. Beer didn’t even taste good. Fortunately there were three teammates there to tell me how shitty of a job I did, and before long we were all laughing about this that and the other. Love me some teammates.
Sunday morning was gorgeous, and so we headed over to local pal Mark T’s place for a road ride. It was total amateur hour, so the pace was slow and that was a good thing. 45 miles on the road bikes was the absolute best recovery I could have had.

Monday night, me and MG began the Snowbowl night time hill climb series with a slow SS grind up the mountain at 6pm. Pitch black, a bit of snow on the road, and I felt strong as an ox. Good times. Only problem is that I woke up yesterday with a top quality fever, cramps, and bodyaches that lasted all day. I haven’t missed a day of work in 1.5 years, and that all changed yesterday. I was a sack of shit, all day.

Today, back in the saddle. I rolled into Lyza’s classroom and sang a song with her about supply/demand. It was fun….my little Leo got all shy in front of her teacher. Big hug on the way out the door, and life is good, baby.