Alicia Keys – Girl on Fire

Hurricane Genevieve has gotten bigger, stronger and smarter.

i watch G climb and she looks like she is flailing, hanging by 1 arm while thrashing her feet. Honeybadger don’t give a fuck.   She just charges straight up and doesnt stop til she is at the top. She keeps that heavy gravity-sucking melon pointed up and never loses her flow. its ugly unless you watch the progress and not the form. She totally kicks my ass on the same lines.

On President’s Day, we rode up some social trails in the McDs foothills. The first ~1 mile is m’eh doubletrack, G was bored and faking being tired. Alana on the trail-a-bike spent 2 hrs singing. As the trail goes on it gets, by tinyRider standards, progressively more interesting – rockier, singletrackier, tighter and rollier. It ends north of the Windgate valley, with some cool views of the mtns. Halfway into the ride, G realized she was further up this trail than she’d ever been, and she got…not a 2nd wind…but inspiration. She started riding harder,   more fired up to clean the rollers and sandy washes. She walked upslope on the whoopdies, not a trace of frustration on her face. I no longer had to cajole her; she pushed the pace.

enough energy at the top to roll in the dirt

The return trip was 4.5 miles and 500 feet down, G insisted on being in front and ripped the whole way home. 30 min and we didn’t stop, which has never happened before.

At lunch she ate:

• a giant belgian waffle with strawberries and whipped cream
• an egg
• 2 slices of bacon
• pickle
• oj
• a quarter of my overstuffed reuben

Had to be over 1000 calories, for barely weighing 70lbs. Hasn’t stopped eating all day.

She’s making it bell-to-bell in her soccer practices, pouncing on plays, bouncing off kids, seeing the spot before the spot she needs to shoot. Coach told her the other day “you’re not hurt if you’re not crying, go play.” I tell her the same thing. She dusted herself off and scored another goal

Soon enough she will hate me and not look up from her smart phone. Hopefully i won’t be such a fat sack of crap that I’ll have forgotten what it means to be an athlete myself. The surrender has happened incrementally over 7 years, and its gone so deep I don’t even remember what its like to plan for my own big days. All I want is to be with my kids. I missed the Tortolita 50 putting on birthday partys, missing the Fatbike Odyssey this weekend to help coach her game. At least i’m getting a stoke bump from her now.