Now I can't get Willie Nelson out of my head. Anyhoo, I am in lovely Albany NY today. Left at Oh Dark Thirty yesterday....sore as a mo fo after the weekends races. This AM I woke up and had veritable plate of booger cough up out of my throat when I opened my eyes at what is 4AM Mountain Time here in NY State. The sickness gremlins are waging war. Yea! I feel like a bike racer SO much. SO rested. Mmmm. Rest.

In a New York minute, things can change. I'm back home after a trip away to NYC to see family and take care of some work. Things can change in the blink of an eye.

These last 4 days have my head spinning....

~Seeing family and old friends shows me how they...and I...have changed and life is not infinite but 50 years of marriage shows me that love can be.
~NYC is not the same City I once lived in. It's soft. There is no edge any longer.
~My work world showed me how quickly things can degrade for some people I've known and trusted for ages....and showed me what can occur if you do not make the right decisions.
~I'm home now and peering into my sons bedrooms tonight, they seem older. They're changing. Please stay the way you are my sweet boys. Show me again and again and again how you just learned how to ride a bike. Stay there for a little while longer.

I will lay my head on my pillow tonight and I will sleep soundly while I shouldn't. The past 4 days are in the front lobe of my brain firing synapses at such a furious pace I can almost physically feel them firing. Last night was restless. Hotel restlessness from being away from my loves and dealing with all this unrequested life education I just witnessed the last four days. The kind of restlessness where your eyes are open at 2 in the morning and you whip the covers off, drop your feet to the floor and put your head in your hands, the brain all tangled in knots in what if scenarios, contingency plans, the future, what's next, am I ready, will I do the right thing for my family, why isn't there a real crystal ball.

After learning most of the 'education' on Monday, I needed to suffer. Turn my mind on to channel zero and make the brain see nothing but channel zero's snow for a while. The suffering tends to make all life's noise stop....or turns it into 'white noise' as in snow on the television. I strapped on the shoes and got myself to Central Park on an epically beautiful evening. Clear blue skies, trees exploded in mad color. Commencing the run, channel zero could not be tuned in. 1/3 my brain was in overdrive thinking through things I've just learned while another 1/3 is causing me to half-smile as my eyes are seeing old treasures in the Park I haven't seen in years. Trails we used to poach and certain rocks we used to huck ourselves off of on big hit slalom bikes with Night Sun's blaring through those same trails during many nights, many years ago. the last 1/3 of my brain knows that this weekend 'cross is coming and for once I smiled about it while on the road....when typically it' s a stress. No more. Racing is racing and it's my salvation and cleansing from reality. My run through the park's single track made me feel like I was riding and that balanced the thrashing going on in my brain. I hopped trees like barriers until the legs were cached and I could go back to the anonymous hotel into my anonymous room and think some more.

I'm home. I'm lucky.

Back home and pumped to be here with my fam. This trip was super short but I feel broken. No Wednesday WK's for me today as I was in an aluminum tube most of the day, so no blow by blow or pics. Sorry! Sager has some pics of this AM's frolics though: