Dodge, dip, duck, dive, dodge

Hello reader,

Hurray rest day!

All the cool kids say it is just as important to have great rest and recovery days as it is to have hard and intense training days and since I'm trying my darndest to be one of the cool kids...

Yesterday, however, was a hard and intense workout.  I began from my Mesa apartment at 1:30 in the afternoon and had a 70 mile route picked out which included a loop on the road race course for the upcoming Valley of the Sun stage race. The wind was coming out of the northwest, so when I began my journey, headed south and east, I was cruising right along at 30 miles an hour.  This wasn't completely lost on me, so even when it was time for higher power intervals I did not thrash myself too hard, in the beginning.  As I headed further through and eventually out of civilization it became clear that the elements, not the intervals, would be the true challenge of the ride.

As transcribed from the video commentary, 

"It really speaks to the ingenuity and obscenity of humanity that they have created a civilization out here, this is ridiculous." 

It's too bad my telephone doesn't have a better video camera on it because it really was a sight to behold. The tumbleweeds were traveling in herds of tens and twenties and whipping across the road at tumbling speeds.  Only because I had an interval workout planned already did it come in handy to, on more than one occasion, have to go all out to sprint away from a T-boning tumbleweed.  Also, thank goodness I didn't go out too hard when I had a tailwind because the wind could not have been any more in my face for the entire ride back.  Even when I got back into the sprawl, the weeds were after me.  I was stopped at a light, and to the delight of the people in the 4Runner next to me, had to lift my bike completely off the ground to let a little ankle biter weed tumble underneath me.  Hence putting to use the 5 rules of dodgeball.

Then I was back into "civilization" and never more than a stone's throw from a Starbuck's, Applebees, or  Pep Boys.  Stripmall, after stripmall, after stripmall, after McMansion.

How I miss the city and the -10 degrees already.

Read on readers, read on.

-DC