Big Bikes

It Is Officially On,

the 2009 season that is. I did sign up for Battenkill a few weeks but that is, despite the fact that it boasts a bit of dirt road, a road race and therefore not enough to give me motivation to start riding my bike wicked, wicked hard. I’ve signed up for The EFTA King of Burlingame race which is an off-road time trial and I now have the impetus to get off my ass and get going with the training.

The training. Miriam asked me to put her on “a plan” to get her ready for the Cohutta 100 and whatever other races she chooses to do this season. Funny, I’m going to spend time thinking about Base, Building, Periodization, and Peaking for her while my “Plan” involves getting less fat, doing lots of push-ups, drinking less beer (that may fall under the getting less fat category), possibly drinking less coffee (we’ll see about that), riding my mountain bike in the woods in the morning then commuting to work on my Fix-ed Gear. I’m not using the heart rate monitors, the power meters, or even the Rating of Perceived exertions. What I’m using is Rating of Perceived Fun. If it ain’t fun, I ain’t doin’ it (jesus Christ spellcheck, don’t start with me, I’m only half way through my first cup of coffee).

AAH!

Don’t let this happen to you. When I clicked on the link from the EFTA site for the King of Burlingame TT I was sent to this page which is the page for last year’s race so of course it says ONLINE REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. Which is a scary thing to see when you really want to do a particular race. If you don’t want to see that page go HERE and register now. Thanks to a violently virulent stomach bug I was not able to attend last year’s event but I hear it was awesome.

A Shrine in Marigot to Bob Marley or some Guess model

In other news I just had a positive experience while running. And The Pope decided he would stop wearing a funny hat and sport a “Life is Good” baseball cap from now on. The first thing was true, the second…not so much. I was out running around in the rain on the narrow, rolling roads near the place we’re staying here in St. Maarten, dodging silly little mini-mini vans.

Hectic

When the first drops hit that thing happened where all the oil in the road rises to the top making it slicker than hell. This poor little work truck was spinning out trying to get up what was probably a 10% or so grade (the road to our place is more like 17-20% in spots, luckily we have good tires on the van) I mean smoking his tires and going absolutely nowhere with traffic redirecting around him. He was beyond hope so I just watched over my shoulder as I ran in the opposite direction. Eventually he fish-tailed his way over to the shoulder so one tire was in the ditch, rooster tails of dirt flying everywhere. This was enough to get him going again, up and over the top of the hill. If it ever snowed here…scary f-in thought.

M and I went out for a lovely romantical dinner in Marigot

The rain started coming down pretty damn hard on the return trip as I thudded downhill into a headwind. The shoulder I was running on was about as technical as a sidewalk gets, chunks of broken glass, assorted debris, and low hanging branches, I was focused on what I was doing, not spacing out and thinking about a billion other things. At some point I decided it was a good idea to take my shirt off because it was all sagging and weighing me down. It was an excellent feeling, the rain beating down on me, the wind whipping through my 3mm of hair, I think I was actually enjoying myself. Maybe the Pope’s new hat is right, maybe life is good.

When we got back to the house the gate keeper was asleep so Miriam opened the gate. The sleepy guard walked out and shot her in the back, I'm really sad now, I have to find a new future wife.

Wild horses. Either the owner of these guys had let them out to graze by a narrow-ass busy road or they were on the loose.

Either way it was a cool and eerie thing to see while driving late at night in St. Maarten

Does this one need a caption?