The Bike Wife Life Balance

I like it when my life feels like MY life. Too much work and various other things can start to cloud my judgement, lead me to make irrational decisions. Like signing up for more work. And classes. Like cleaning the hardwood floors corner to corner of the whole house. And making a work-out schedule. Ugh. No. But things are turning around. My life is back in balance. I booked 3 trips in the last week, Chicago, Colorado, and Hawaii. I spent too much on a spa day. I had too many martinis last weekend (like really, too many), and I went on a kick ass bike ride with my husband. The floors are not clean, the laundry and dishes are not done, and frankly, I dont plan on doing them today. That's what tomorrow is for.
My other half took me on a mountain bike ride on Monday in Marin. "Just a little loop I used to do, its not that hard but I think you'll like it. My buddy could ride the whole thing from his front door - a few miles away - in an hour and a half. It will be fun." The only non-lie in there was that it would be fun. This ride started with a half mile up-hill road climb, which I thought I might kill him for alone, but turned out okay. I'd like to think the climb wasnt hard because of how in shape my climbing legs are, but in all seriousness, it wasn't very steep.
Once the trail meandered off into the hills, it was lovely. Techical- roots and rocks to maneuver around pretty much constantly, but all the work paid off for breathtaking views. No death climbs but a lot of climbing. Some bumpy, skinny, off camber descents. And it was long! Like, 3 hours with basically no breaks, which for me is LONG! Ie: my right quad was twitching ALL day at work the next day- long.
I actually worked out a points system for myself (because I'm 5), where I earned a point for each technical feature that I wasn't sure I could get through cleanly. Things such as climbing a tight corner, descending a hairpin turn, climbing over steep roots/rocks, etc. I earned 21 points out of 40, probably. So in the end I actually thought, huh, 21 features of that trail I could DO, and they weren't easy. Cool.
Don't get me wrong though. The second I might feel any ego, I'd see my husband climb up a much more technical section, and then instead of descend through a different rocky or techy spot, he'd just jump the whole effing thing and land his bike on the other side. Oh, and on the 1/2 mile ride back down to the car on the twisty road, we were probably doing 20-25mph which deep down makes me kind of nervous. Thats when I think about the what-if's of crashing. But there he is, ahead of me, fast and furious... doing a wheelie the whole way down. The twisty road. At 25mph. On. His. Back. Wheel.
Show off.

Meandering...

In front of a beautiful view; although we are kind of blocking it.

Ghost rider??

In other news: We told Scott's folks about NZ plans. Much support all around, it really couldn't have gone better. So now it's no excuses! We have a lot to figure out!!
And other, other news: Scott's turning the dirty thirty this month, on Thanksgiving actually! So he's throwing himself the ThanksKilling Super Destroyer bike race here in town on the 19th. He put on Easter Bunny Kill! Kill! Super D this last Easter (are you seeing a theme with the names here?) and it was a very successful race. Updates soon on birthday bike races.
So all is happy in this household. So much to look forward to, bikes and trips and birthdays... and we all know I'm a sucker for the holidays as well. It kind of kills me to wait through Thanksgiving before spewing the holiday cheer. Yeah, I'm one of those people.