I have cracked before the awesome might of The Summer.   Its never a question of if, just when.   You can be strong, you can be upbeat, you can roadtrip, you can keep busy, you can be hidden away in a cave in your basement you learned to build from a Minuteman website…you will kneel at its feet eventually.   It is the mighty Xerxes in 300. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop – ever! You will spend too much time inside watching the cable channels with names no one knows.

Between Alana and the economy and some bad decisions, I have been trapped at home this summer, and it has been the longest of my 10 in Phoenix.   10 Summers in Phoenix!!!. Nearly a year of my life has been lived above 110 degrees. I used up whatever heat-resistant mojo I had for the Crazy 88, and now can hardly fathom that just 3 weeks ago I arose at 4am for training rides. The last 3 weeks have been maintenance, short-timing with too much beer and a bad attitude, getting my 8 hours mostly from commuting and the trainer.   And some awesome laid-back nightrides with my boys.   Last Wednesday we might have just barely broken 1.5 hrs spin time, and with nary a peep in protest quickly withdrew to my porch for cold beers.   It seems everyone else has cracked too.

I have several upcoming trips to cooler climates.   This was, effectively, the last weekend of summer for me, and I planned to avoid it head-on. The last few weeks I’ve ended my WFH Fridays by jogging Alana over to Indigo Joe’s for happy hour.   Its been great cross-training and fun for Alana and a hoot for me telling do-gooders to fuck off and leave me be as I point to the jogging stroller locked out front. Its also guaranteed I’ve been in no shape to ride early on Saturday.

4pm run works up a thirst

My self-sabotage ran deeper this week, with a desperate need to ride the Heckler and avoid anything where the words cadence and heartrate monitor could be applied.   I’d already this week ridden the Superlight, trainer, roadie, Hei Hei and Blur to the park with Kila.   But National too would involve waking up at 4am only to cook in my pads.   For the first time since I bought the Heckler, I did not want to ride National.   It was 112 on Saturday.

I wound up doing all of the above anyway, but it was incredibly copasetic, a ride I’d done only once before, and not in a year.   My friend Carmen proposed the ridiculous idea of going to the NRA pit at the crack of dawn.   Allow me to provide some context – full-face helmet, long gloves, as much armor as you own, heavy bikes getting pushed uphill.   Oh, and jumps too, lots and lots of jumps woot woot woot!   A chorus of beginning jumpers planned to show along with a few vets, which would make for a very relaxed and supportive vibe.

Unfortunatley, NRA is not exactly a riding workout, and I still needed 2 hrs for the week, especially after being a sloppy drunk on Friday celebrating summer finally ending.   So I still got up at 4, and headed from the Pit up the north face of Pass Mtn at just before 5.   Riding the Heckler up Usery Pass road and up the wash to the trail in the dark was weird, serene, I didn’t turn my music on the whole 50 minute ascent.   Riding the Heckler up anything in flats was weird, serene, in a completely fatalistic way.   I can get everything on that climb, in real riding shoes.   Flats…you get what you get, and hope the pedals don’t fly around to gauge your shins when you miss.   Eventually, you just settle into it being kinda a hike, and its not so bad, since its much less effort to get on and off the bike.   Not my typical choice, but throwing my bike in the air is not my typical choice, and I wanted to get used to the pedals before I threw my bike in the air for only the 2nd time.

I had all of Pass Mtn to myself, turned around quickly at the saddle after enjoying the sunrise, and shredded 4.5 miles back down to my car.   I met about 10 of my friends on the B line in exactly the place I’d hope to be – relaxed and loose mentally, relaxed and loose physically.   Everyone there I’ve ridden with a bunch – Sam, C&L, Durtgurl, KennyB, AZMikey, the Nowackis – and the good zone I was in was reinforced by a   group I felt relaxed and loose in.   Knowledge and power, mind and body, knowing and doing: the right group and the right vibe can be a big deal on the bike, especially for something as much about poise as jumping.     The intellectual crossover wound up helping me too.   I’m the same ballpark on tech stuff with most of the other noobs that were riding the b-line, so I knew my successes were good, and my failures acceptable.   It made it even easier.

My day was nothing special, by any accounts but mine; about 8 runs down the b-line and not a scratch on me or the bike.   Big improvement from last time, where the first time I caught air my stomach dropped out and I felt absolutely and totally untethered, then terrified each of the next few runs down.   Today I felt pretty good. I was really surprised how comfortable I was almost immediately.   Scared, but relatively calm.   I hit the jumps knowing what I needed to do, and what felt right, enough times til i began to get an inkling of understanding about what made it uncomfortable and then how to make it comfortable again.   In Ultimate, I’ve taught hundreds of people to throw forehands, and was always amazed at the gap between my explanation and muscle memory that was simply unbreachable showing a new thrower how to pivot from the hip and let the sidearm motion do the work.   I could make 5 warmup throws and have my release point and speed dialed into the wind and distance and be damn near ready for a game, but new throwers couldn’t stop stepping forward with their leg even when I held it down for them.     I will probably never be there jumping on the bike, but in a small way things slowed down, and I began to get it today.   Carmen told me to stay centered – I have no idea how to do that, I could not put it into words, but I kinda got it as the day went on.   On my last run down, after we climbed to the top of the hill and watched Kenny and Carmen and Lynnette show their chops, I noticed on the first two jumps that I had lost my rhythm during our rest and was landing heavy on the nose.   On the next and subsequent jumps I fixed it.   I don’t know what i did, lean back in the pedals a little, but it was exactly the kind of progress i needed.   If I do enough reps, I eventually will be able to translate this into instructions, like angling a forehand inside-out to throw upwind but not too much so the wind pushes it sideways.   I’m already trolling for deals on shoes designed to ride the flat pedals.

Sam, Kathleen and Carmen all posted some cool vids and pics on Facebook with some great shots of Kenny and Lynnette especially. Check em out.