Life is Good

I hit 'cross practice with the Coppis this morning with the Powertap on my rear end. Well, the bike's rear end anyhow. The workout was to warm up, ride tempo for 40 minutes, and do a stiff 10 second effort once a minute. That's what I did. It wound up a surprisingly fast way to navigate around the cross course. At one point, I was about 75 yards ahead of the "A" group - I just circulated for 40 minutes while they did a couple hot laps, then rested, then repeated. Anyhow, I wound up staying away for close to another half lap, despite not flogging myself. As it turns out, if you just stay on the gas firmly, pedal through the turns, and do a big acceleration here or there, you can really motor along without killing yourself. I thought they would have caught me a lot quicker, but "riding slow" in some conditions maybe produces higher speed.

Pardon me while I have a combination zen moment / hippie far-out-man freakout.

This was really interesting. There's a gravel dogleg on our course that I wound up taking repeatedly at speed, little or no brake, cranked over as if on a road turn, but pedaling through and drifting mildly toward the apexes. *That* was fast. Then I was just smoothly pedaling the off-camber straight on the side drainage area of the soccer pitch. I discovered that when I made big power pulses, I bobbed right and left, and this slowed me down. But if I focused on a smooth spin, I could carry speed with a lot less effort, because I wasn't bobbing. There was just less friction on the tires. *That* was fast too. Grabbing up the sack, throwing it over my shoulder, and riding hard into the two 90 degree turns off the sidewalk, letting the wheels drift in the wet grass, was also fast, but that required putting a bit of a surge in to keep the wheel slipping in a predictable manner rather than hopping across the grass. Slip-sliding in a more courageous way than usual, was also fast. The uphill and the super-tight off-cambers atop the hill... well, I sucked through there because I was determined not to work the uphill that hard (not like my power:weight limitations permit me to hammer the hill anyhow), and I just haven't figured out the off-cambers yet. And the long grass flat... well, that will improve when I put the tubulars on. Right now that's a long slow grind.

But otherwise, I learned a big lesson. Spin, spin, spin. That's the ticket for getting around the course fast. Forget my big grinding accelerations and pedal mashing and feeling like you're working hard; just keep turning the pedals in a steady manner.

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Life is good at work too. A friend of one of my co-workers stopped by, a musician buddy of his, a real interesting fellow that I happen to be a pretty big fan of. My colleague and the musician just wanted to have a chat but all the rest of us went all fanboy / fangirl on him - maybe predictable considering the age and background of most of the people in my office. We couldn't help it; I'm sorry. It was cool though, a big uplift. I'm smack in the middle of what is starting to look like an epic stretch of very tough projects, just some ridiculously enormous challenges, but this little bit of serendipity brought a lot of unexpected joy into my day. I got a chance to thank the musician for providing me with a lot of smiles, particularly back in the days when I used to have to deploy in a treesuit, and he took the news that he used to get sandwiched between Garth Brooks and NWA with aplomb; "At least I was in there." Damn straight he was. Garth and NWA were good, but He made desert island music - y'know, "if you could have only one CD..." I wasn't cheeky enough to ask him what it was like to get hammered with P.J. O'Rourke and watch Dennis Conner fighting for the America's Cup. He's a hell of a businessman and a hell of a musician so you know there's some iron in there, but I think what I'll remember about him is that he's the most gracious, humble, pleasant guy you'd ever care to meet.

I'd Get a Lot More Done if Jimmy Buffet
Would Just Quit Hanging Around My Office...

I've met some people with impressive resumes before but in terms of celeb / political / sports / business people that I've met in real life, I'd rank King of the Parrot Heads number one on the list. The guy is richer than Croesus and didn't have to be gracious to a bunch of his friend's colleagues, but he damn sure was, in spades. Words fail me.