20-11 a RUKUS RE-ENVENTION

Much like Brad Pitt in that lame movie “Seven Years in Tibet” I have had to undergo extreme hardship in the cause of trying to find myself this past year. Too much school, too much office work, too much the man trying to keep me down and certainly not nearly enough RUKUS to keep life even remotely interesting.

Like most people going through life change I sought control over my otherwise out of control world and grew a sweet old man river beard and put on some short shorts. This didn’t work. I put the bike up for a few months to focus on finishing the education the man tells me I need. That hasn’t worked. I even reverted to a primitive state, running barefoot through the streets of AZ looking for meaning and purpose. That just got me dirty scratched up feet, but no new direction.

My search lead me to the Grand Canyon and the transformation of hippie beard into radical handlebar mustache. My goal was to run it rim to rim, all 24 miles, in under 7 hours. The main draw back was that with this incredibly manly mustache I stood a high chance of inadvertently impregnating fertile women along the way. Not that I would actually have intercourse with these galls but the power of the mustache is so high that things like this are known to happen….its science.
The run went well, lots of communing with nature and other hippie bull crap. But on the south rim as I slaved up those infernal log steps it came to me, the higher meaning of the RUKUS, the enlightenment that is 20-11 a RUKUS RE-ENVENTION. Feel it my brothers and sisters, right down in those anti-social bones of yours. Let lose the inner beast that craves to get out and tear the living crap out of all this convention you’ve surrounded yourself in. Follow the Evolution at evomo.com

Look who came home.

Burn out is a hell of a thing. I speak from experience, if you noticed it’s been a few months from my last post and while it hasn’t been that long sense my last bike ride I have to confess that it has been at least two.

I reached my limit about the time of my last posting where I just could no longer stand the idea of being in school for as long as I still had to go on my MBA and something had to give. That something it was decided had to be cycling. I put aside racing and riding and took on 24 credit hours at once to get that degree over and done with. The upshot is on August 16th I finished, the sown side is that every time I pass by my bike room all of my bikes flash me evil jealous looks.
While I couldn’t dedicate the time to training and racing I did have half an hour or so each day to get out and run. While running is certainly nowhere near as cool as mountain biking I am committed with a number of my friends to run the Grand Canyon in the middle of October. I’m excited for the run and fearing it at the same time; the image that sticks out in my mind is walking out to the north rim of the canyon, looking out and seeing all 24 miles of pain laid out in front of me. If years of marathon races have taught me anything though it’s that pain is temporary and some how I always end up on the other side of it alive.

And Dagny is a Cowgirl. Just an FYI.

Have fun in the rain.

When it rains in Arizona people absolutely lose their minds, it’s the amount of sun shine that we get, people forget that some times it rains. They do have the capacity to se that things aren’t normal so they make drastic changes, most of which are uncalled for. When it does rain everyone slows down to 15 mph below the speed limit or if they can just stay inside. That means the trails are all mine,not that I want to own the trails, but some times the less people you see the better.
I was tempted to do the same after work but I had a little bit of time that I could get out for a quick run. There are few things I love more then the desert after the rain, everything is 10x as green and all the dust is washed out of the atmosphere making it possible to see for miles. The down side was that it was a cold rain.
The upshot was that it was off and on as I ran and even at its hardest it was a best a heavy drizzle making running conditions perfect.
It won’t be too long that I will be dieing for this cool of weather so it’s a shame that I don’t have too much time to enjoy it. Look at that view though would you? The desert smells even better then it looks, its hard to describe but everything just smells fresh. The soil out here has an odor that jumps out with any rain that is unmistakable.
I also saw the season’s first wild flower, one of many to come. It should be a good season for flowers with all the rain we have been getting.

One of my long time friends, Micha is in town this weekend on leave from the Navy. He’s not that into cycling but he does run so we went out to the river and ran the Hawes loop with Travis.
Travis read Born to Run as well so he has been barefoot training for the last month. However neither of us are to the place that running barefoot on the trail sounds like such a good thing. He however has started the next best thing and started trail running in his converse, it’s basically like running with no support, just protection.

Death to the pool.

So how did I spend the rest of my 4 day weekend? I got rid of my money pit in the back yard that’s what, what everyone else calls a pool.
This thing has sucked my time and money for the past 7 years and after seven years of thinking about doing it we paid to have the thing collapsed. I’m super excited I didn’t try to do it on my own though as I had planned on because as it turns out there where three separate pads of concrete back there.
Yet another fun part of living in an old house, you’re attracted to them because of the original hardwood floors but that’s the thing that suckers you. Once you’re in though then all the fun things come out, like three pads of concrete surrounding the dysfunctional pool

I got to take the day off work today because Sarah has a big day at her job and Dagny has a doctor’s appointment this morning. Vaccination time round two for the baby! She said she is ready for it and isn’t scared, I thought that was pretty brave for a child of four months, not to mention articulate, strange.
I snuck out before the sun came up for a quick mountain ride before Sarah had to leave for work though. The conditions where perfect, last night brought a nice heavy due making the trails super tacky. You can always tell trial conditions are good in the desert when you get this light dusting of dirt that sticks to the tire.
One of my favorite aspects of riding when the sun is coming up or going down is the long shadows. They make the 29inch wheels look even bigger.

No 24 hours this year.

With my schedule this year I’m not going to be able to make out to 24 hours at the Old Pueblo. I’m not super excited about that because I could really use a man weekend out at the races but there is too much home work and too much work work to get done between now and then.

All this being said, who’s the luckiest guy I know? This guy because I get to spend my weekend with these two.