Day: July 9, 2007

oh no! we’re not in this together

/ chollaball / Leave a comment

We’re In This Together – Nine Inch Nails

I did the Usery Loop today on the roadie. I was looking forward to this ride all day, planning to be fucking gone gone gone from the office before 6 so I could manage the whole ride in the last hour of daylight and capture a little bit of cool and shade. the speed and rhythm would help pull the soul-draining hairshirt of monday off me. plus it would help cure my residual hangover from a weekend of drinking heavily and eating wrong in Rocky Point. I was hammering pretty hard from the get-go, the short ride and the day’s anticipation driving me to a strong start. i’ve felt slower than I used to be on the roadie and its been eating at me, since…like since the Tour de Phoenix about 15 months ago when I trained pretty hard and just managed to break the platinum group at 3 hrs 14 min. sucking on the roadie shouldn’t bother me because I have not been putting in the road miles plain-and-simple, I have done Tortilla Flats once this year compared to about once-a-month in times past. but it does bother me, because I hate to suck just on general principle. there is also a social MTBR road ride coming up in 2 weeks, and while I’m not worried about being slow, its always fun to feel strong in a group ride. So, I was hammering, and realizing I had a good split at the 4-way stop sign, pushed myself along up Usery Pass.

hit the climb up Hawes at 48 min, which means i’m right on pace for my strong times for this ride. i was feeling it all over…back, quads, arms…but whatever there was only 15 min left, and short hard rides like this are the perfect way to get stronger. so i dug in for the 6 minute-long final climb. then Nine Inch Nail’s “We’re In this Together” comes on my player. sweeeet, this is exactly what i needed, this song will give me at least 3-4 minutes of motivation before the fatigue overtakes me, and by then i’ll be close enough to the top to shoot my wad and then the climb will be over. the grinding angry pounding rhythm totally matches the rumbling in my core as I launch into the climb, and i’m pushing strong smooth strokes and feeling good and feeling just the right amount aggressive and just the right amount content.

then the battery on my player dies.

G’s voice now in my head “nooooooooooooooooo”.

E-I-E-I-O

/ beckie / Leave a comment

Genevieve sings!   Ok, not really, but she does love music (particularly reggae and ska, but that’s another story).   On the singing front, she is pretty much a one-hit-wonder.   On radio Genevieve, it’s old MacDonald, all the time.     I dont know if it’s a sign of our horrendously neglectful habit of parking her in front of baby einstien or if its something she gets at day care, but she loves that damn farmer and she walks around singing e-i-e-i-o all day long.   She has a set of animal-related literature that she relates to Mac  D, and she walks around clutching these various tomes and singing until someone sits with her and sings the song.   We do the song as a duet, with her supplying the e-i-e-i’s and naming the animals and me handling the rest.   The only problem with this approach is that G’s farm contains only dogs, as this seems to be the only animal’s name she can remember.   I think she may be figuring out “cow”, but for now, it’s a “moo” in Genespeak.   I think she may also be on the verge of getting “horse”, but she seems to have a little difficulty determining which is the horse and which is the cow.   Her plight is not helped by the fact that she destroyed her “Snappy Little Farm Animals” pop-up book so that the duck has no head, the horse has no  nose, and the rooster is completely MIA.   Cruel, cruel baby.   She’s never going to win the 4-H competeition at this rate.   Maybe I should call the humane society.   That poor duck.