Mr. Murphy.

Him and his laws seem to take stock in my upcoming events.

Like I said in my previous posts the rides have been spectacular lately. Very Poetic; Last night was no exception.

We have been doing Night Sessions at Snowhill on Thursday(all are welcome) and have a great time of it. This time I decided I would park on Barr Street and ride to the other lot, 5 miles away, and meet up, just to get some extra miles. Plus by my calculations it takes a 13 mile ride and makes it into a 21 mile ride.

The ride is going great and I feel good. Jason has two dramatic crashes within miles of each other. I was surprised he was not hurt, but regardless my flow cup was flowing and the trail was melting beneath the shred of my tires.

We came to a section of trail that we can usually blaze thru and was greeted by flooding. Now I thought that there was no way it could be that deep, but upon inspection, my front wheel came close to half way down and I barely dipped it in the water. As Jason was crossing a baby alligator swam under him, he was about 2 feet long with lots of bright green colors. It was pretty awesome to see. Not even a half a mile after that we came across a big 5 foot gator just chillin on the bank 20 feet below.

The night could not have been anymore magical till it happened. Coming around a sharp corner that descended into a rooty chute, mid way I quickly notice that the normal spot we plow thru was filled with water, I grabbed a handful of front brake and was sent airborne, splashing down into the water, hands, knees and face.

Luckily I didn't smash my face into anything or come face to face with any animals. Other then being soaked and a pain in my right calf, I was OK and so was the bike. From then on I took it cautious and when we finally exited the out and back section I decided to cut 3 miles from my ride and head back to the car early. I was getting really cold being all wet and was starting to get concerned about the growing pain in my calf muscle.

On the drive home, all I could think about was how I am one week away from a momentous event in my cycling universe and now I was going to have to go into the event with a pulled calf muscle. And I thought about Okeechobee how I did that ride with a enormous sleep deficit,
and how I did Santos 12 hour with horrible neck pain. It seems to have been my karma to always have something physical or mechanical keep me from entering an event with all pistons firing.

When I got home, I took 2 alleve a nice bath, ate food and went to bed. Could feel the pain all night. Woke up the next morning with the ache fresh in my mind. As I got up and walked around, the pain became tolerable. As a matter of fact I worked all day with it. Up and down the ladder, climbing poles, the whole nine yards. Even took the kids to a loop around the cemetery and challenged all the neighborhood kids to sprint races.

Ten hours of riding this weekend is the goal. Well see how it holds up.

I think I may have Murphy checked this time.

Enjoy,
Laters,
LOS