
 photo by Andrea Pastos bottom caption from back of photo Cycling in Alaska Circa 1986 click on top photo to enlarge |
What started out as a horrible day, turned into a nice day. Had trouble sleeping all night due to a tooth ache - an agitated molar with a peppercorn that got stuck the day before...yowch. Was just painful (all better now). Jammed into the office and started running on tasks. The past few weeks have been painfully busy - but it's good to be busy, minus the stress. Managed to deal with crisis control and move on. My staff does great work and we have honed down a level of mutual respect for each other.
Enuff about work, finished up very late and suited up and biked out to Ashburn to try to meet up with my cycling club - they were already on lap two when I joined them. We did another 3 laps - was very pretty out, albeit a scorcher (was 94 degrees out when I left the office with high humidity). Sweat like a mo-fo. Had a nice spin down session on the way back to homebase in Herndon.
Was able to catch up on the news of upcoming events and races. I am only one of a handfull of the club that is going to do the Bridge to Bridge Century in September. The rest think we are all completely nuts. But - they count on us to be the "goats" when we paceline up the hills. We shine out front pulling the herd up the hardest hills. If you can imagine my tiny figure in front of a herd of about 20 guys all counting on me (and the other 3 goats) to lead the pack. I get them all up the hills and then when we level out...I break back to the mid-back of the paceline - I hear nothing but "yo dude, amazing pull!" "dang, you have goat legs (then make goat sounds), good pull man". Feels nice to be appreciated. I guess I've finally found my "specialty". I love it. All in all, twas a very sweaty & fast 46 miles.
Came home and did a few domestic things and planted a few more mums in my deck garden. It's starting to really shape up. Had a late start in the season...and a bad storm which wiped out the first effort.....but now it's lookin good. My neighbors have complimented me on it.
I was able to scan the photo from yesterday's post at work and post it here. Obviously a better quality photo. Cracks me up still. Click on photo to enlarge - Alaska is beautiful (except the funny 1980's cars). May go there next summer for my 20th high school reunion to meet up with some old friends (and some cycling events). Need to start planning that soon.