52 at Fifty: Week 2

So I started this week off NOT drinking all I intended on drinking for St. Paddy's day.  Which was also supposed to be my spill over Saturday for missed drinking for last week.  Oh well.  More for later I guess.

Sunday was a nice day.  I decided to overcome laziness and Winter and blah and "I'll wait until the temperature is stable" and fuck it.  I did manage to do just that.  Which is saying something because that is a pretty strong cast of characters.  Especially fuck it...  In spite of them I logged the first official mile of 2018.  That's right y'all.  Cycling season has started!

And in another first, I got chased by a dog!  What the hell?  What is this saying about my 2018 season when there is a dog in the first mile?  Hell it wasn't even the first mile!  I hadn't even made it off the block!  Not that it was a major dog incident.  It was some Chihuahua mix.  Needless to say, I wasn't feeling much in the way of mortal peril.  The thing barely made it up to the foot on the down stroke.  So if I kept the foot on the upstroke side she was just practicing.  So I had a little fun with it.  I said "You're not gonna catch me.  You're not gonna catch me.  You're not gonna catch me!".  And I accelerated slightly to keep it's little legs working hard.  I think the cat that had been cornered and was being terrorized was happy I breezed by, because I seemed to be more tempting than the cat.

Just as I was about to turn the corner and leave the little thing in the dust, I hear a voice.  "Please don't run, she is only going to chase you!".  My immediate thoughts were as follows:

• Chase, yes.  Catch, no way in hell!!!
• Lady you don't have to worry about that.  Kinda hard to catch what you can't see.
• Even at 50 AND having not been on since October, my sprint will still quickly destroy any hopes it will have of it being a good chase.
• Not really my problem... Meep Meep!

Then I heard "It is only going to make it harder for me to catch her.  Can you come this way and help me sir?"  I think it was the sir that slowed me up.  Because I looked back at her to see the cane she was walking on.  And I remembered how much fun catching my idiot dog when he was running loose.  So I checked the traffic to make sure somebody wasn't gonna run me down, and executed a u-turn.  Sure enough the little terror turned with me.  I rode slowly back toward the lady so she could convince the fur ball to give up the shenanigans.  It almost worked too.  You could see the dog was considering running back up on the porch.  Even paused a little.  I know I only imagined hearing it, but the dog definitely said "fuck that" to that plan.  Off in another direction for more terror.  I guess having people chase you is more fun to dogs than chasing cats and bicycles.  After that the lady basically said "Fuck it, you will be out here until my husband gets home.  He can chase you!"

I was rolling inside!  Hey I did my part.  I got the little cuss to the porch steps.  Sealing the deal was someone else's job.

The rest of the ride went without incident.  I remembered how wonderful it was to ride my old Cannondale.  So wonderful in fact that it had me believing untruths about my conditioning.  Then I remembered that strength gives out as endurance wanes.  I can only feel for all these people who I will be dragging around the area over the next few months.

Shifting gears... (heh, heh)
I generally do not enjoy being compelled to drive 75 miles to do something I can do from my bed.  Especially not multiple times a week.  But such is my life.  There were a couple of small benefits to having done so.   One day lunch was provided.  This was along with meeting the leadership on my current project.  The other was an encounter that is making me smile right now...  The set up: Me heading slowly towards the stairway so that I can generate some awake.  I am overtaken by a lovely woman in an above the knee skirt, right at the choke point.  Since I didn't want to hold her up, I deferred access.  I seemed to have lucked up into access to more than just some calves.  Those thighs were wonderful and flawless and thick.  I had not previously realized just how long those legs were.  Seemed like they went right up to heaven for more than one reason... (it was a long starway also...)  I only hope I managed to maintain enough composure to not be seen noticing.