Semi-hiatus again

Sorry y’all – Life is exciting for the next two weeks. Heck, life is exciting almost every day.

Regardless, I’m wrapped around the proverbial axis until further notice. Apologies in advance. Good stuff, though.

T-Ball practice was the greatest. 7 kids, mine was the most ornery. We’re sponsored by a funeral home. Not sure if we’ve got the black t-shirts – kind of hope so, out of morbidity. But, again, reading the kids was the key to a good practice – they get squirrley when they’re bored. Great parents, too.

Worked out a bit…

Friday, I made it out for the run to the Gazebo. 46 minutes; I’m getting slower as the month progresses. But at least I’m out there.

Billy rides again

On Saturday, I finished what is likely going to end up being the most expensive wheel change ever. Yes, boys and girls, I put knobbies back on my mountain bike. After t-ball practice, I headed out on the trails in the neighborhood. I’d hiked it a bunch, and had thought that it was too (steep, rocky, excuses, excuses) to bike on. For sure to tough to ride on my ancient Trek 930 – hard fork, hardtail.

I was wrong.

There’s not a huge space, but it’s cut through with trails by the kids with dirtbikes and four wheelers. Never thought I’d appreciate them, but they’ve got a great eye for terrain. None of the climbs were straight up grades, the turns were all good, sweeping turns. And, most surprising to me – they’d largely avoided the boggy areas. Good stuff…

So, I steer off of the road, onto the trail, and line up for the first obstacle – a pair of 6″ limbs across the path, about 10′ between them. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it shouldn’t, but it’s been almost 5 years since I dropped in on singletrack, and the last time landed me in the hospital with a snakebite. Like, from an actual poisonous snake. I hesitate momentarily, forget to unweight the front wheel, and endo. How sweet is that?

Pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. I cleared them on the second try.

The rest of the ride rocked – Connecticut singletrack at its finest. Plenty of babies’ heads and roots. Not a single bit of level ground in 100 acres. The beauty of approaching gloaming through the trees. I fell a couple more times, and headed back to the house fat, dumb, and happy.

Epic Run

Sunday Afternoon, we did our usual Family Swim at the Y, with Missy hitting the gym while the boys and i stave off hypothermia in the pool. On the way home, I tried another new route – cutting through Pequot Woods to add a couple of miles of trail to the run home. Talk about getting my butt kicked…

First, there was the climb up Baptist Hill out of Mystic on Route 1. The hill just keeps going, and going, and going. Then, there’s a steep downhill to the south end of Pequot woods, followed by one of the roughest trails I’ve run (Though I’m sure it’s similar to what Dianna eats for breakfast). The trail – uphill, too.

Finally, it’s over the top of Cow Hill (THe one that ate Warren’s lunch at the end of our epic), with a little bit more heading up Lamphere at the stoplight, instead of straight down to my street. Over the tip-top of Cow Hill, down Oslo, past Freeman Hathaway school, and another third of a mile of trail, and I’m spit out.

As icing on the cake, one of our neighbors who I haven’t met yet is out raking. I stop to shoot the breeze, and she lets drop that her daughter is of babysitting age. Woo Hoo!

OH – Due to fortuitous circumstances, the engagement that had me missing Bluff Point is being pushed back a month or so. With the addition of a babysitter to our bag of tricks, it looks like both Melissa and I are going to race. She’s doing 3.6; I need to register for the 7.