bad night

something flatted my rear wheel at a really bad spot, most likely my own poor riding, i had good skills but just wasn't able to nail this one spot cleanly, well it got me in the end. last night after we got home i was sleeping ok tll 1 am or so, boiling stomach woke me until i emptied it. slept a while until the next bout of whatever it was. gone now, i'm weak, tired and bordering on nausea. not the best way to spend a night after a race, eat when i can avoid the weird thoughts that haunted me all night, what were they that made me stay awake and feel so out of it? maybe it'll come to me.

passing

better to get it over with now, take my hits before the real freeze comes. getting it done slowly but somehow i feel better about it. sunday is the next test, so far my gpa isn't so good. that'll change.

301005

i saw a fox last night that looked like it ate better than most of america (is that possible)i see it all the time, overdone. is there an overdoneness? whatever it's called it creeps in and gets a hold of a lot. simplicity is where i want to be, it just sucks wading thru all that crap to get there. is it a place? maybe better organization first then thin it out from there.

more

blue water, heavy legs and marginal coffee, why can't i find a longer commute that doesn't have to start at 5 am? how great it would be, i know i can find it. it's there, i just need to find it. kind of like looking for that last tube in the back of the shed.

moose

i missed it, the moose was walking around our old neighborhood. i want to have that sicily moment. i hoped it would happen at the old house, never did. hoped again at the new house, not yet. living here more than ten years i have seen moose once. my first summer. maybe it'll happen, i just hope it's not in the middle of the road at 5 in the morning.

WTF???

if you go thru the trouble to put on a light and go out at dusk or dawn shouldn't the cars take the time to notice that not every road user is in an suv? i had the good light on the front (in flash mode for extra visibility) and the red flasher in back, why can't people pay just a little bit of attention. i didn't get hit, barely avoided that one. rolled away shaking my head, gave a polite wave at the stoplight, just got on with my work. expect little and you won't get hit. extra berth, key.

1s & 0s

i really enjoy listening to the ipod while riding. it did seem odd to listen to the subhumans and the black furies the other day while riding. playing a podcast, of music that's 20 years old, riding a bike, dorky decadence. punk rock and high tech portable music never really fit like a proper jigsaw puzzle in my head. the music is so beoynd what should play over such a small device. odd how i preconceive how music should be played, wtf? it goes where it can be played. i had minor threat on my rio 4 years ago, and then it seemed odd too. why is that? all bits and bytes, 1s & 0s. this morning we danced around the house to shatner with ben folds and joe jackson, b loves it. we each get a train and a cookie cutter and run and dance, damn life is good. slow or not.

good work

good work this weekend, suffering thru lack of high end fitness. good to be feel like i actually could ride. better second half than first both days. it'll get here, soon enough.

trick

moonlight this morning was so bright i thought it had snowed last night. the ground was bathed in a soft frost-like glow, i got out on the cross bike to see that the ground was frosted like a delicious treat from daylight, not a snowy frost from the sky. rolled into town in the dark to find cheap tasty breakfast burritos at the market. i'm still full. coffee right now, life is good.

@#

i might be on to something, i tasted it yesterday, that iron-metallic mucus in the back of my throat, it's there, it's here. the trick is to keep it going, two a week like that. put the other behind for now, get to that spot and leave it there. yeah, i have a lot of work to do. for a good end. new shirt in december. that'll keep me warm all winter.

wetday

at least it stayed rain all day, i should have gone out on the road but i went home instead and got on the rollers for a while. sissy. i needed the work on the road but the work i did get done was pretty good considering...i was on the rollers. i wanted dirt but it would have been super sloppy out there, trying not ruin the trails is a good thing. bigger things to come, more on the plate than i thought possible.

slow

i needed fenders today, it was probably the wettest morning i can remember and i got truly soaked, maybe i'll put them on this weekend and leave them on for the winter, is that a bad idea? it was really dark, the light reflecting off the road being my only guide. it still felt good, temps near freezing and the bike feeling comfortable over the slick roads. i'm lucky, it rained but i got to ride to work today.

work

really took the hits this weekend, i know it'll come but the two weeks off hurt the pride a little. being that far back is never fun, normally i'd be top 5-10 in the group not...where am i? why aren't the lungs working? why did i sit on my ass for two weeks? better ride sunday than saturday and then the flats were sort of irrelevant, i wasn't going to win, just wanted to do better, always.

woke up at 4.30 thinking weird thoughts, i was up for the day. i kept going over in my head palindromic phrases, one in particular:

a man, a plan, a canal, panama

i don't get it. over and over forward and back, with punctuation, without punctuation, odd. and blue water, on my mind for the 10 minutes i tried to fall back asleep. couldn't do it, fast awake. too cold for the knickers today, i needed full legs and the first lobster paw sighting of the season, cold, dark too. needed the lights and the flasher, it's here. maybe i'll see the octopus' work next week, try to get out and enjoy it, maybe a night ride if the snow melts a bit. not counting on it at this point. bleak thought; winter from now until may. if that's the case we will certainly get out of town more than once for a beach break. mexico in january? mmmmmm that warms me already.

back

cold and snowy return home. no road bike today for the commute, cross machine glided across the ice patches. b was great on the plane, no troubles, he's happy to be home, it must be hard to leave familiar surroundings and get thrown into a new setting. he was ready to be home.

tiles

it seems like a predictable stretch of road, a mosaic of colors and textures that mimic the lines on the faces that mark the sides of the road. or is it the other way around? i like not knowing, the comfort i feel in my knees as i walk past the sculptures, the blur, blend and morph of one to the next, really cool to look back and see it all as one.

number one rolls on, number two is here, he seems quite the charger, not really stepping out of the way as much as making his own. i'm still taking my hits, maybe return a few this weekend, yeah i think it's my turn to throw in a few, no more complacency, time. i like the way it feels, bigger they are... good few days off, break is over seven weeks out, seven weeks to the big one, yeah the time is here. ready?

nonesuch

i was happy to at least check out the race, nothing too bad, i think i would have gone well, not to say i would beat the locals but it would have been a fun course, muddy, fast, and turny, my alley, for sure. the motivation grows to get it back together, season is on when i want it to be. challenge. fast guys here in the mud, good to wind it up and churn, mmmmm butter.

our leader on a mission from god

not to get off on a tangent here but what did the red states do to us? wtf? he heard from god that he should invade? i love religion. the next thing you know we are going to march across europe killing everybody who disagrees with us. oh wait, that was done already, the crusades.

odin

i took my hits over the weekend. it'll come. fresh snow last night, cold trip in today, it's on. tim was faster than all in the b race sunday, no surprise there. the tour did him right. new bike for the next race, yeah, life is good.

lichen

little pre-dinner loop on the flumes last night, pretty good stuff, the legs had just about nothing, was nice to cruise the trails without haste. amazing how much there is to see at slower speeds, texture on rocks, lichen growing where tires can't knock it off. trees losing their leaves onto the trail. simple riding on a simple machine.

relax

i just don't get it sometimes it all works out pretty well and others for the reasons i can't grab it just falls into a whole pile 'o poo. taught a little clinic on saturday with tim and then did the twilight race saturday night, great course, fun, modest field, and really fast stretches. got away in group and let one guy off the front, not thinking he would hold it through the full hour. my mistake. held strong in a group the varied b/t three and five riders for most of the race, knowing there was good money on the line i made sure not to mess it up further. with four to go i started thinking of making deals, asked the other driver in the group if he wanted to pool the cash and he refused, i attacked, easily got away and drilled it for a lap, not much else to do, finished about 10 seconds behind the winner, my mistake. i was relaxed on saturday b/c i was tired from the clinic and the drive (three hours over three passes) sunday i was stressed b/c i had a mechanical warming up and my head just wasn't into it. not relaxed, shit effort with shit legs. bummer. i need to separate the crap from the cream. no relax no good race.

http://news.yahoo.com/sandcastles

castles made of sand. good reading, or maybe boring depending on how much time you have spent building sand castles.