fall

fired-up the woodstove this morning,
leaves are turning,
ribbons of singletrack are sprinkled w/color.
summer goes fast in vermont,
not complaining,
but not ready to get the board waxed.

hunting season heralds the official end of mtnbiking for me.
at least until i own a bright orange bike.
but, still have 6 weeks of dirt,
no reason to dwell on the end.
this is the best riding of the season.
full of fitness,
the skills fresh,
it comes easy,
the flow tapped into w/o thought.

been thinking about the great rides of fall.
the vermont 50 is this wknd, by far my favorite event of the year.
then the Kahuna, maybe the greatest group ride ever conceived.
wonder if brad and daren will make it down.

decided to go into a massive 2 week taper,
maybe a bit too much beer drinking,
like to think of it as glycogen loading.
figure the season is just about over,
might as well go into the 50 way rested.
and w/a cpl lbs of extra power.
as an old friend who sold weight-loss pills told his extra-sized customers,
"think of all that fat as a giant battery,
we gotta tap into your power!"

enough blabbering,
time to go split and stack wood before class.
splitting wood is great in that you get heat from it a cpl-few times -
in the cutting, splitting, stacking - and burning of it.
or at least that's what i've been told.
i like the positive slant on it.
but, i won't be doing much of it 2nd half of the wk.
the vt50 taper includes the arms.
the rigid gauntlet has been thrown!
(by thom and andy).
as i said to them,
"aahhhh shit,
gotta step up!"
but to the ss?