Spring (hopefully) is just around the corner – maybe two more weeks of really cold weather? This weekend was pretty awesome – we finally got a little glimmer of warmer days to come.With temperatures approaching 60 degrees, it was impossible to stay off the bike. On Saturday morning I got a little bit of a late jump on the day, but decided to head out to the Comet to ride anyway. At the 20 mile turn around, who do you think I ran into but Rocket Man Todd Cawley, enjoying a luxurious rest before heading back. We rode back in (for the most part) at a relative lolly-gag kind of pace. When we got to the parking lot, Todd had to split, but I felt soooo good I just had to go for a run. This turned out to be just about the only mistake I made all weekend. After about only 800 meters my quads went into “lock-down” mode. Ahhh, nothing quite like the first brick of the season. I suffered through, finishing in a 7:20 pace – ugh. The worst of it is that while on the run I thought forward through the calendar and it dawned on me that our first race is only five weeks away. Impossible. And we couldn’t start with a short one, oh no. We have to start with Powerman up in Birmingham. The bike should be a piece of cake, it is the two 10ks that sandwich the bike that have me a little worried. Oh, well – nothing gets you motivated like a crumby race early in the season. On Sunday we had so much fun we decided to do it again – this time riding out to the 25 mile turn around and back. Todd gapped me by about 90 seconds and then we paced all the way out – pretty much blistering the course, especially for this time of the year. On the way back was another story entirely; we struggled mightily into a rare headwind for the 25 mile return trip. With about 15 miles to go my legs went away completely. After a while it became downright silly, and all I could do was laugh at how much it hurt. I haven’t suffered a beat-down like that in a long, long time. When we got back in I was so tired I could hardly even garner enough energy to eat.

When I got home my plan for the afternoon was to take a good, long nap, and then maybe watch a little Olympics before getting back to work. This is always the worst at the beginning of training season, when a little ride like this can wreck your whole day by making you pretty much worthless for anything else. So, instead of napping, I decided to do some yard work that has been outstanding for way too long: raking up the remainder of our leaves. For those of you who are familiar with where we live, you know we have quite a number of very large oaks on our property that keep us busy throughout the year. During the fall we usually have to rake about 5 times before the leaves are done for the year. Unfortunately up until now we have only raked four times as it has been raining so much. Tired as I was, I hustled through the chore, finishing up both the front and back yards in about three hours. There were enough leaves to practically fill our compost pen. It was exhausting day, but in the end I cannot imagine anything that would have been more satisfying. Work and play: there are really not many things more lovely that a freshly raked yard, especially after a good hard workout. With the leaves all cleaned up the first tentative perennials can be seen just beginning to peak up above the surface of the ground. in about ten more days we should have beds full of Jonquils and Daffodils. While it does not exactly feel like spring is around the corner, at least this makes it look a little more like it is. And in my book, that counts.