why?

First off, I just want to say that I love Michael Hutchence and I'm really sorry he's dead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (Him, not me.)

Now that I've gotten that off my chest I just needed to get some thoughts down for the record. I'm going to ride to the top of Coal Bank pass tomorrow, 40 miles away from my house and pretty much uphill the whole way. The question that must be asked at this point is WHY?

I could be philosophical and answer, "Because it's there." but that is way too cliche and I'm really not sure I understand that logic anyway.

I could be a smart ass and answer, "Because I will do anything to avoid cleaning my house." but I'm still going to have to clean it when I'm done so it doesn't really change that fact.

I could be elusive and simply answer, "Because, just because." but elusive just isn't me.

So I will answer truthfully. Because I really need to know that I can do something like this.

I wrote all that almost a month ago and I made it all the way up to the top of Coal Bank Pass which is a grumpy little pass that tried to get the best of me and FAILED!

Apparently, I really can do something like this because I made it up and could have kept going had it been race day, I felt that good.... YIPEE!

However, Alicia and I got cocky and attempted the same ride a mere 6 days later and the experience was less than stellar. The good news is we are training enough to actually have to worry about over training. The bad news is we were over training and for the six days after the second summit attempt I had no energy at all... for anything... my house got very dirty.

Race day is a mere 18 days away and I am excited, petrified and a bit impatient. Training for something like this is very time consuming and I'm really ready to not have to worry about getting three rides a week in because it's really cutting into my free time to do things like playing computer games, sleeping in and writing in my blog.

I am also really anxious to prove to myself that I can do this without crying or falling apart, I don't think I have ever been in better shape than I am in right now. What a great feeling!

Not that I like to toot my own horn or anything... or maybe I do.... but today was Tuesday which means a scheduled group ride at noon at the Sports Club, which is owned by a madman, and today at noon it was raining with gale force winds (or at least what passes for gale force winds here in Durango) The organizers stress that we will ride come rain or shine so I reluctantly suited up, steeled my nerve, whimpered a bit when I stepped outside and headed for the Club. When I got there the ride leader, whose name I will not reveal to protect the wuss, was not at all pleased to see me because he had just decided that since only he and the owner of the club where there they were going to call it a day and cancel the ride.

I want it on record that I was ready to ride, my logic being the more I ride on shitty days the better the chance of the actual day of the race being beautiful. That makes complete sense to me and the worse the weather I ride in the more the odds increase in my favor. That's my logic, I won't apologize but you should have heard these two men whining and complaining about the weather and how I had ruined all their plans to go home and curl up with their cats in front of a roaring fire. PANSIES.

I took pity on them because frankly neither of them has much body fat and I didn't fancy having to administer emergency hypothermia first aid half way through the ride due to their skinny-ness. There is also the very slight possibility I let them off the hook because I really didn't want to ride in that weather either but I didn't want to be the on whose idea it was to not go.

So, the agreement is that I let them bow out of the ride if they promised to tell everyone else that I was the only one who showed up for the ride AND I was ready to go.

Was that a bit too much? Probably, but I have never been the one who shows up no matter what so I had to revel in the feeling. I'm done reveling now.

The bottom line is this, with 18 days to go I feel good and ready. I'm extremely proud of myself for committing to this and I can't wait to see how I rise to the occasion.

wisdom

I was driving around, running errands with Keiran yesterday and out of the blue he says, "Mama, I don't think it would be a very good idea to do a flip when you have a sword in your belt."

This is very true.

Archives

I don't know if anyone else noticed but I have ARCHIVES now on my blog. ARCHIVES! Do you realize what that means? It means I have written enough posts to have ARCHIVES. It means that if people I don't even know happen to read my blog they are going to think I am quite the prolific blogger because I have ARCHIVES. With any luck they won't investigate any further than that because then they will find out I'm not really a very prolific blogger and my reputation will suffer. Maybe this whole ARCHIVES thing is not such a great idea.

Now that I'm done raining on my own parade I have a question. Why can I never let well enough alone? That expression, "let sleeping dogs lie" is an expression for a reason and yet I just can't seem to be able to do that. Fortunately the incident that triggered this philosophical debate (yes, for me this qualifies as a philosophical debate) didn't involve anyone else but myself. I did not try to straighten out a family member's life (not that there aren't one or two that could use it), I did not try to change the course of American politics single handedly (I'm not that optimistic) and I did not try to get Duffy to actually put his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher even though he somehow gets them to the sink which is right next to the dishwasher. All I did was try to change my bike tube, that's all and then my world, which had been going along so calmly, dissolved into chaos.

Part of this bike training thing I am doing involves education for those of us who have never undertaken anything like this before. We get to talk about things like what to wear (definitely not jean shorts), what to eat, (they discourage taking Doritos along for a snack) and how to change a flat. I know the basics of how to change a bike tube but thought I could use a refresher so last week when Instructor Ken told us to bring our front wheel to class so we could practice under the watchful eye of trained professionals I thought that sounded like a great idea. How could I have been so wrong?

I should give some biographical information regarding my bike at this point. I have had it for almost three years during which time I have put roughly 1000 miles on it and I have never had a flat so the tubes the bike came with are the ones still going strong in the tires.

The first sign that things were not going to go easily for me came after I managed to get the tire loosened from the wheel. At this point Instructor Ken said, "Once you have the tire loosened reach in and pull the tube out" like it was the easiest thing in the world which I'm sure it is if your tube hasn't been in there for almost three years of riding on hot roads, at blistering speeds causing it to become fucking welded to the tire.

At first when I couldn't get it out I thought I was just being an idiot (because that is the most logical explanation in almost every case) but then when one of the guys in the class who hadn't brought his wheel and was just watching for his own amusement tried to pull it out he couldn't get it to budge either. It took Instuctor Ken a good five minutes of pulling and tugging and exclaiming in amazement that he had "never seen anything like this" before that tube was finally liberated. Needless to say it looked like the bike tube version of Stretch Armstrong and the chances of it being unharmed where slim.

It was... harmed that is. When I pumped it up it held air for a minutes before giving up and letting it all go. My tube, the one that had seen me faithfully through 1000 miles of riding without ever once giving out, had been done in by a training exercise. Now that I think about it, I've never had much luck when it comes to tires. The first car I ever owned was a saucy little yellow VW Superbeetle my dad and I purchased from a man named Dallas Pistols (I am not kidding). The first time I got a flat on that car I was actually excited by the challenge of proving to myself that I could change a tire. I was so excited I took off and replaced the wrong tire before I realized my mistake.

Just like this one little bike tube that was never actually flat was giving me so much trouble. To make a long story... um... longer, I ended up patching that poor little tube (twice because the first time I did it with no air in the tube so when I inflated it, well it didn't go well) and trading it out for my replacement tube. I feel I have somehow betrayed that loyal little tube by making it the spare. I'm sure I'll get over it. My point is, had I just "let sleeping dogs lie" I would not have had to go through all this trouble. What are the chances I learned anything from this?