AZT

How many times can I post with that (or a variant) as the subject?

One track mind, I guess.

Today was a full day of trail building followed by trail flagging. I car pooled out in Doc’s car to meet steady winds in Vail (big surprise). The volunteers were there to work. They ate up all the trail that Bernie, Doc and I laid out two weeks ago, while I hot-footed it around checking in with all the crews. All the sudden there was no more trail to build, so Bernie and I scrambled to lay out some more — going against my recommendation of using the gasline rather than building trail. It was a stupid recommendation by me, because the trail turned out brilliantly. Couldn’t have laid out a better trail in 10 minutes myself (it *did* take 10 minutes). Nice, challenging problem to think about. I thought it was steep enough that it needed switchbacks, but I was definitely wrong. The turns look good, real good. Other than the quick trail layout the other challenge was getting the crews to build straight trail instead of not removing vegetation and creating awkward, eroding bends. This will be a rare section on the AZT — you can actually ride fast.

After lunch (mmm cookies) Bernie, Doc, Mai and I hopped over to Old Sonoita Highway to flag trail for the next event. We had a great time out there. I felt my blisters from the Grand Canyon starting to re-emerge just as we were finishing.

Regardless of what we got done, it just felt good to get out for a day. This past week was a rough one. I worked myself into the ground for a conference paper deadline. On the homestretch to the 3AM deadline I ran into a little complication: food poisoning. What followed were 48 miserable, untolerable hours. I didn’t even get my paper submitted. Absolute disaster.

Interesting experiences including feeling so bad that I wondered, “is the rest of my life worth getting through this?” And the closest I’ve ever come to schizophrenia. For a while, lying there, there were two people in my head and I’d switch between them. I can’t remember what random, insane thoughts I had, but I distinctly remember trying to get whichever one I couldn’t control to shut up. A high fever, severe dehydration combined with 48 hours of no sleep will bend your mind a little.

I haven’t even thrown up once in the last 10 years (since high school). That streak is now broken, and let’s just say this bug helped me make up for lost time. It was absolutely brutal.

4 days later I still had no appetite and the thought of eating food was not attractive. It was an odd thing to be able to operate (at least around the house) without food. I’m so used to always having food within reach, and being constantly hungry. It was a relief, actually, but I knew I was digging myself into a hole that I didn’t need to venture into. I’m still a little weak from the AZT race, and this set me back.