i chose to fly home to az to spend a mere 38 hours. but ya know what? it was so eff-ing worth it!! i totally got my fix! :-) later this week, i'm going on one of the 1st 'vacations' i've been on in a long time....the mediterranean! actually, the thought of flying back across the atlantic yet again seems overwhelmingly daunting for this girl who can't stand sitting still for more than 5 minutes, but geeeez, i really really really needed to ride my bike, to try to run on a knee-in-mending, breathe the northern AZ air, smell the junipers, hear the quail, etc.. it's totally like a drug for me! (the good kind of course!)
so, is it crazy that i flew all the way from WDC to AZ (looong flights, crowded airports, coach seating, long drive home from the airport, etc.) JUST TO RIDE MY BIKE for less than two days??? absolutely not! here's what a gal can do in such a short amount of time...
* mtb!
...rode the mountain bike for 8-9 hours! lots of fun, twisty singletrack, uphill, downhills (which i handled quite smoothly this time, yay!!). thunder mountain, deadman pass, cockscomb, dawa, soldiers pass, up the ol' standby schnebly mountain, down munds wagon trail, templeton, ht, the jumps behind courthouse rock (woo hoo...caught some air...yes me!), some road in between. i finally got to test out my new Team XTERRA shorts. they were fantabulous and i'm hoping to be up for at least one xterra in the next month or two. on that note, mtb state finals have come and gone, and despite the knee issues, i had a great time and got to learn a lot of new lines! looks like i'm a cat-1 lifer!
* hike!
...nothing major, but got up at around 5am to sip on coffee and hit the trails behind the house in search of javelina and the perfect sunrise spot. the perk of jetlag is that i always wake up so early in az....another yay!
* donkey!
...took "donkey" out of his stall (garage) and straight to some ol jeep trails. he was so happy to be outside that he didn't even try to buck me off even once! also, i think i've finally gotten the whole kickstart ordeal worked out.
* splash!
...nope, i didn't suffer thru any boring laps. i simply went to the pool with my smoked MTB legs and jumped in the cold pool. soaked all my lactic acid away so the legs would be ready to play again asap!
* run!
...well, sorta. the knee definitely is not 100% as it still sorta hurts (and it might forever), BUT BUT BUT it is much better since all those little bone shards were removed (from the surgery), and so i galloped a fun 6-miler on the trails behind the house. i jogged the downhills and blasted the uphills.
* critters!
...in the short span, i saw a fox, coyote, roadrunner, lots of rabbits, jackrabbits, tons of lizards/geckos, companies of quail, etc....but no javelina, no mountain lions...which is probably a good thing!
i'm gonna have to brush my teeth a zillion times just to get all the bugs and dirt out of my teeth, for i couldn't stop grinning and hanging my teeth out for the entire time i got to spend at home. yep, i'm a mtb-riding, juniper sniffing, crack-addict....totally fixed, totally reinvigorated, totally recharged, and ready for whatever comes next, which, sadly, is taking another red-eye tonight back to WDC, just to catch another red-eye tomorrow to the mediterranean (where i actually plan to sleep siesta sleep siesta; it's been a busy few months).
anyway, it was a lesson learned in squeezing what ya can outta life.
what's your fix???
anyway, it was a lesson learned in squeezing what ya can outta life.
what's your fix???
absolutely smashed!! :-)
