Harden the Fuck Up

My own version of a Senate Confirmation Hearing was on Saturday and fortunately I came out with little more than a few raspberries – scuffs if you will. Our homeowner Board was cordial, inquisitive, and surprisingly gracious. So the bottom line here…..I still have a job. Profits were down in 2008, but, we still did a hella’ lot better than the rest of the economic market segments.

So I needed to blow off some steam on Sunday, and a 50 mile road ride through the lava fields of Sunset Crater would surely do the trick. AA and myself started at the top of the loop ‘round 8:30am. 39 degrees and windy – not bad. We had a tailwind for most of the 3000 foot drop into high desert country north of Flagstaff…..oh, we definitely had a tailwind as our average speed for the first hour was 31mph. It was in the high 40’s at the bottom. Then – we turn South….hmmm a little headwind there, then we turn Southwest and head up the climb back to the car. Holy…. Freakin…. Headwind Batman. We realized we had to paceline or it would become a side by side deathmarch up the mountain. 2 minutes each, rotating so we could catch a breather by drafting behind each other – and recover at least a little. Time to harden the fuck up. With one push left to the summit at a little over eight thousand feet, I blew…I blew like a broken VW Bug engine. It took me about five minutes to recover and I finally caught AA on the downhill after the crest. We hightailed it across the flats until we hit a wall of wind dropping us from 13mph to 5mph in seconds and it was that kind of hell ride back to the car over the next five miles. Then AA blew a gasket and fell off the back with noodle legs. He found me huddled at the car on the leeward side waiting for the fucking keys. FREEZING. It was still a great ride – call it a character builder if you will.

Home, hot tub, chores, a fire in the wood stove, 24oz of Tecate, an hour in my “old man” chair, nice conversation with the D, a colossal bowl of granola….in bed at 9. It was a good weekend.