Thank you to everyone who has supported and helped the team, not just this weekend, but over the years as well!
This weekend we achieved an amazing feat in team history. 1,2,3 overall in the State in Team competition at the High school races. It’s really quite hard to believe. I was not expecting this, this year. At the beginning of the year I thought we could do ok, but this is over the top.
We now have two races in Phoenix left and we are in position to take home 1,2,3 in state if we can keep it up.
Remember we need all riders to be prepared and ready. So please do what you can to be prepared.
It’s not over yet and we should not rest our laurels thinking we have it in the bag. I want to keep everyone motivated, hungry and excited to complete the dream season. Yes we are in great position, but at this point that is all. Nothing is set. We have 4 more weeks to stay on point and then a much deserved break.
Training Plan
Tuesday– Endurance road or mountain bike ride. If you have a road bike, ride it. If you only have a mountain bike ride it.
Wednesday– 3:45 and 4:30 practice MTB
Thursday– 4:30 MTB
Saturday– Long MTB ride. Leaving clubhouse at 7am returning around 11am
Sunday– Fall Fondo. Biggest fund raiser of the year for the team. Everyone it’s mandatory to help and participate.
THE FUN SCALE
Everybody likes fun. And fun, like anything, can be nuanced; not all fun is created equal.
The Fun Scale
What fun awaits?
But it wasn’t until June 2001, while bushwhacking through thickets of Alaskan devil’s club—home to hungry grizzly bears—that I learned of the Fun Scale. Fun, it turns out, is quantifiable.
The bushwhacking came about because my friend Peter had invited me to join him on a low-key outing: a boat ride across a gorgeous bay to climb a small, mellow mountain. It sounded like the perfect finish to my trip, as I’d spent the previous month climbing in the Alaska Range. My climbing partner, Scott, and I had had a terrific trip. Though we were often terrified while actually climbing, we loved it later.
I tried to keep up with Peter as branches whacked me in the face.
“You know that there are three types of fun,” Peter said, ’shwacking onward.
“Hey, bear!” I responded. We were trying to return to his sailboat—home to a cooler of cold beers.
Peter kept going, and described the Fun Scale. Here it is:
Type I Fun
Enjoyable while it’s happening. Also known as, simply, fun. Good food, 5.8 hand cracks. Sport climbing, powder skiing, margaritas.
Type II Fun
Miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect. It usually begins with the best intentions, and then things get carried away. Riding your bicycle across the country. Doing an ultramarathon. Working out till you puke, and, usually, ice and alpine climbing. Also surely familiar to mothers, at least during childbirth and the dreaded teenage years.
I remember that very trip to Alaska, just a week before learning about the Fun Scale, when Scott and I climbed Mt. Huntington. Huntington might be the most beautiful mountain in the Alaska Range, but the final thousand feet was horrifying—steep sugar snow that collapsed beneath our feet as we battled upward, unable to down-climb, and unable to find protection or anchors. On the summit, with the immaculate expanse of the range unfolding in every direction, Scott turned to me and said, in complete seriousness, “I want my mom so bad right now.”
By the time we reached Talkeetna his tune changed: “Ya know, that wasn’t so bad. What should we try next year?”
Type III Fun
Not fun at all. Not even in retrospect. Afterward, you think, “What in the hell was I doing? If I ever come up with another idea that stupid, somebody slap some sense into me.” Many alpine climbs. Failed relationships that lacked Type I fun. Offwidths. Writing a book.
Into which category a given experience falls, of course, is highly subjective and highly subject to shifts (particularly from III to II) born of the rosy reflections afforded us by the passage of time.
Which is probably a good thing. After all, as alpinists and mothers both know: It doesn’t have to be “fun” to be fun.
I will not be at practice on Tuesday. I stayed home sick today.
I am in Flagstaff until Thursday night. Will be there to ride Fondo.
Myles