I don't roll on Shabbas

I normally don't miss my morning constitutional, but yesterday was the exception. Since then, I've been a little behind schedule. Yesterday was also my mid-week day of rest, kinda like my bike version of Walter Sobchak's, Shomar "I sure as shit don't roll on" Shabbas. Check out his MySpace page here...who'd of thunk that Walter was 63?! I guess time has rolled by since I first met him. Those two factors left me feeling a little like ole' Walter last night. It was that feeling which greeted me on the ride this morning.

Anyways, I rolled today with the usual loop of Hawes to include Mud Flaps. Sometimes I send that hill and sometimes it sends me...not that it's technical...but when your heart is pounding it out at 97% of your max HR for more than 30 seconds and your balance begins to wane....usually after the 3rd Mud Flap and while trying to navigate a bunch of baby heads floating on top of some nice grunnel; you tend to just want to fall over as a precursor to catching your breath. If it were not for the cholla guarding the 2nd to last mud flap on the right side, I just might choose to fall over...forget the dab...just fall over; but my tingling legs just managed to dismount from the pedals to arrest my fall towards prickly hell. Now before some of you folks get huffy and say you always send that hill and I just suck, you're partially correct. I've only been rockin the fat tire for 5 months now and am still learing the painfull lessons daily.

What pisses me off is that I've been sending that hill more and more lately and it seems like when I do, my HR is somewhere around 183 the whole time. Guess the digestive mysteries of ones inner workings keep us coming back for more. The fact that I'm even bitching about Mud Flaps rather than that tricky, off-camber with drop off, kitty-litter over hard-pack, descending 150 degree switchback on Mine trail; or the slot boulders which always seem to clip my pedals when I've nearly topped out in my climb up Twisted Sister just chaps my hide. That's what I want to get beat by, that's what I live to try again, that's what keeps me up at night with excitement; not the non-tech, pure cardio climb whose only reward is still at least 2 months away on a skin track up a snowy summit somewhere in SW Colorado. You see, after a long ski season; the pure cardio did not bother me because I still had the smell of fresh wax in my garage and I could visualize the benefit to hammering. That tends to get lost after daily grinds through the desert in 110 degree heat, sweating and cursing in the dust. I guess that after 4 months of this heat and cross training and this lengthy rant.....What I'm really trying to say is......I'm ready for the snow to fall.

10.3 miles, 1440 ft elevation gained