spooky times...

So Lisa Crowe and i spun the "wheel o' bad ideas" some time last week. It landed squarely on "ride 56 miles to your next cross race".

I know what you're thinking, "Geeze Steve, thats a bad idea..." and you're right. It wasn't bad bad enough for me and lisa's level of commitment. Fortunately Google Maps helped us out by routing us into a mountain. Not 'til we got to the top of the mountain, did we find out that our bad idea had indeed gotten worse. Did i mention i was on a singlespeed?

With google's assistance, it turned our little 56 mile bad idea into a nice, square 71 mile bad idea. Dont worry, those extra 15 miles were only mostly climb.

Its kind of creepy when you aren't sprinting, but you are going as fast as possible. Several times in the race i told myself "self, you're gonna finish last if you don't pick up the pace" and usually when this happens i put in a little dig and my speed ramps up, maybe only a little, but it ramps up. This time every time i went, "ok, GO!" my go had went. It was wierd.

In other spooky news, i have been cheating on a sponsor, and former employer, stell coffee and tea. I have been getting my morning fix at the olive market, which i had passed several times on the way to work, before i figured out it is sooooooo much more time condusive to stop there as opposed to stell. Its right on the way. I would say about half the time i see the same woman with an infant in a a stroller, and a 120 pount toddler with a pacifier in her mouth, clutching a chocolate bar, along with an assorment of lolipops. Perfectly normal considering its like 9:10 in the morning, or as i like to refer to it, "the infant introduction to diabetes" hour. Of course the overseer (presumably the mother) of this baby gorilla isn't the most svelt of her species, but hey, she dresses in athletic clothing, complete with a stroller made for jogging, and running shoes.

In my minds eye, i have:

• Knocked the mother out. Cold as a block of ice. One punch, an overhand right.
  
• Screamed at the people behind the counter "what the hell are you smiling about? And why are you selling this child candy bars at 9 in the morning? Are you taking crazy pills?"
• Exclaimed that she's a shoe in for the blue ribbon at the state fair.
• Told the little girl that daddy drinks to cope with mommy poisoning their children.
• Reported the mother to social services.

I don't know how much longer i can handle it. I could totally see myself in court and telling the jury "I dunno, some time after them coming in and before i put some milk in my burnt french roast, everything went black. But if you say i took a dump in the kids chocolate bar wrapper and made the mom drop it like an asprin, before i grabbed the baby and yelled 'come mit me if you vant to live...' im sure that's what happened..." And then seeing the jury shug and give each other the "i mean, what're you gonna do...." look. I've seen that crap on montel, but never in my own back yard. Insanity.