Fox's Den

The problem with trying to do long fast rides with a group of Cat 1 & 2 road racers is that inevitably the next day you will fail to walk.

Ok, they didn’t hammer me that bad but what did was the combo of that ride on top of a serious session of squats, lunges and calf raises in the gym the day before, a 35 mile ride the day before that and a 6 mile run before that. Delayed onset muscle soreness is a bit of a bastard and so is riding without carbs in your drink… that’s right – fuelled by water y’all.

After a lazy morning doing little other than walking the dog and going to the mall for some new running socks I took to the garden with a magazine and soon fell asleep in the sun. I had one of those dozes where falling in and out of a twilight zone allowed dreamy interactions with people I hadn’t seen for ages enter my mind. Images interspersed by sounds of squirrels cackling around the trees behind me and a distant leaf blower. I awoke feeling pensive and wistful, wanting something but I didn’t know what. Needing to go somewhere but I didn’t know where.  I needed to run but couldn’t and didn’t want to wreck my already sore legs any further. And then I felt irritated and alone.

I decided to get out of the house for a bit and headed to Walmart where I could find some muscle rub for my legs and some fish for my dinner along with a side order of spectacular freak watching. It didn’t disappoint.  I left the store with my bag containing Tilapia fillets, antacid and sports rub for sore muscles and headed to my truck in the car park only to be super obviously eyed up by the craning neck of a man driving a black pick up with “JUST MARRIED’ written in white across the back window. I shook my head in disbelief, thinking about it as I pulled out on to the main road – hoping the guy driving was not the guy who just got married and then kind of hoping he was…. married…. and off the market.

On the way home the evening was cooling down and the sun was starting to drop to treetops level casting a beautiful orange/blue mix across the sky like a watercolour wash. I pulled into a dirt side road overlooking a Polo field and just sat staring into the colours, thinking things through, feeling very alone.

It’s times like these I wished I could concentrate hard enough to connect with someone’s mind to make them realise where I was at that minute and how important it was for them to be there and then they’d come and appear right there in that moment to share it and make everything else go away.

And then I’d treat them to Tilapia fillets, a muscle rub and some antacids when the sickliness of my ridiculous imagination eventually took its course.