Mondays are Mondays. Mine are usually pretty great. Got in some important work and emailing.

Purchased and mailed a birthday card. (Happy Birthday to all the timely readers!) At the grocery store where I picked up the greeting card I saw this. I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but the championship trophy is shrinking.

I know because I had the pleasure of holding the trophy two years ago. It was the day this happened:

You see, Aubie “stole” the football trophy during the offseason, which led to a series promotional videos. (Happily the Trooper Taylor one is still on the site.) It all led to that home opener. Before the game we ran into someone we knew from the athletic department who was carrying the trophy in his backpack. He let us palm the trophy, Waterford crystal valued at over $30,000. It was bigger than this mockup.

Made a few business calls. Did some other work things. Work things? Yes, it is getting to be that time again.

Took a quick ride around town, one of those days where it didn’t feel especially good, but the time was an improvement. Looked down and the speed was faster. Only a mile per hour faster, which isn’t much given my baseline, but is enough to make the entire, familiar ride seem frantic. And even still I noticed new things in the textures of the road and the signs alongside it. I think that slightest increase of speed came from attacking a few hills a bit harder.

Then, on Red Route One, one of our speed segments where I just go as hard as possible for 10 minutes, I added some nice distance to my personal best. It is almost entirely downhill, I must confess, but it is great segment with one little roller and then a 90-degree righthand curve that lets you dive and accelerate for the next 500 meters. The last mile and a half is hard in the drops or in the ridiculous aero position.

I want to go ride it again just thinking about it.

Did I mention that this weekend I found another rode where I can break the speed limit on my bicycle? I think that makes three. Moving up in the world.

Not really. I’m still a terrible cyclist.

Chinese for dinner tonight. This was my fortune:

That might be my favorite one yet.

And now back to the emailing. I’m sending out varied tips to students who’ll run the newspaper and website this coming year. Lots of details. So many words. They’re just falling out of my fingers like rain.

Hey, rain. Told you we’ve had a wet summer. Some places on the coast recorded more than 20 inches. In July.

The two weather stations nearest us recorded a comparatively arid 8.8 inches and 10.10 inches in just the one month.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 5th, 2013 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Auburn, cycling, memories, Monday, photo. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.