Keeping Score

Much pain and suffering, I sense

No, I'm not talking about Ep II, which I liked, incidentally. I hit that trail I was talking about earlier today on the mountain bike with my buddy Phil. It handed me my ass. I didn't bail or anything, but the technical stuff (log hopping, stump hopping, and uh...fallen tree hopping) really killed me. I haven't had that much exercise in quite awhile, and I actually had to stop in front of a huge logpile that I wanted to jump/hop over and just rest lest I keel over and vomit from exhaustion. My problem is that I don't eat breakfast when I'm in a hurry, and I was dehydrating because I wasn't drinking enough water, since I didn't have a camelback (a backpack thing with a waterbottle in it that has a hose running to your mouth) or my bottle cages hooked up on my bike yet.

I tried to stop and get bottle cages before I went riding, but I needed to be at the trail by 10:30, and at 10:10 I was at the bike shop, pulling on the door (which is always so sticky/stuck that it feels like it's locked). This time, it was way stuck. So stuck, that I couldn't open it. I checked the sign, and sure enough, all week long they open at 10am. But on Sunday, you know, that day that everyone who owns bikes and likes riding them is out riding them...they open at 11am. Jerkholes. I could have saved me some near-pukage if they had opened at a decent hour.

But it was a lot of fun to get out riding again, and I really enjoy the technical parts of the ride. I'm looking forward to doing it again next weekend, but the really awesome/rugged parts of the trail I can't take poor Liz on, because she'll wind up catching her handlebars on a tree. Or doing a header over the handlebars as she plants her front wheel in a log. Or bail over because she hit a treeroot at the wrong angle. Which is unfortunate, because I like riding that trail a lot, but the whole point we bought bikes is so that we can ride them together.

It's kinda scary there. There was this one section of trail nicknamed "Endor" because if you're really good (which I'm not) you can take it really really fast and it's all windy and narrow. Like about a foot wide narrow. At some points, you're just barely avoiding trees on either side of your handlebars by inches. Needless to say, I took it sloooooowwwwly. Well, not that slowly. I took it just fast enough for it to be exhilarating and terrifying, and Phil took it fast enough that when I finally exited the trail after him, he was just sitting there waiting for me.

Much to learn, I have.

Actually, much to train, I have. I suppose this was karmic revenge for me wearing Liz out on the bikes two weeks ago. We went out riding on a local paved park trail (that runs for miles behind people's nice houses and along lakes and prairies and pretty things. I was riding at a comfortable pace, and just assumed that would be comfortable for everyone involved (Liz and myself). Well, even though I felt like I was riding slowly, it turns out I was riding at Liz's top speed. She was mad and exhausted, I felt bad, and now I know what her stamina level is at. The same thing happend to me this weekend. Phil was riding way slow for his speed (he's practically a Pro bike rider, if there is such a thing), and I was at the edge of my envelope for bike handling on offroad surfaces, and at the edge of my envelope for stamina. Hence, the near puking.

Ugh. Karma is a beyotch.

I wanted to write some about this whole Kuwait thing that's reared its ugly head in the news, but I don't want to be labelled a warblogger, and I really don't need to get all wound up over stupid people saying stupid things regarding politics. All I have to say is: Kuwait, if you don't like our foreign policy, then maybe we'll just take our ball and go home, and you can handle Sadam on your own. Sound good to you guys?

Huh. Didn't think so.