Just working on work things today, writing a bit. Forgive me if there isn’t much here.

Here are some leftover pictures from the Art Walk held downtown a few weeks ago. You’ll remember, if you follow that link, that one full block of Magnolia turned into a road of kids young and old writing in the street.

There’s a crosswalk in the middle, and a couple of young adults claimed that area as their own. They were insistent that you see their art in the right order. This was very important, in the way that art must be explained. So I am sharing the crosswalk art in the proper order.

Nice sentiment, as far as it goes:

Rode 30 miles this evening, up and out through the neighborhood and over the side of one of the big hills, marveling at my dead legs. Then down the hill, reveling in gravity, and turned around to go back up the hill, looking for my legs.

I circled part of the bypass, and then up one of the false flats, past the airport, over the interstate and back into our part of town.

The local cycling club has a time trial course nearby, a road we ride frequently. But now I’m trying to ride the entire thing with time in mind. Today was the second attempt at that, which was not as good as the first. Mostly I’m slow, but also I found myself concentrating so much on breathing I messed up the math involved in timing myself. So I gave in a bit early, feeling defeated when my previous time clicked by just before I made it to the finish of the time trial. I’m just riding against myself here, so there’s no real shame in exhaustion and bad math.

Mostly, though, this ride was not as good as my first attempt because I’m slow.

RIding at a tongue wagging, eye bulging, rib ragged way has a lot upside, the best being that you seem to breathe so much better afterward. After, that is, you can breathe again. And so I doubled up on the course, back down half the time trial course, over that same hill from earlier and sped through a subdivision, chasing an SUV in a sprint I wish I had in that time trial — sometimes the great challenge is putting it all together at the right time, that’s why I keep coming back to this I guess. Finally into some nice downhills. That’s a great end to the route, helping satisfy my last goal of any ride: make it back into the house without sounding like I’m hypoxic.

Such a simple thing, two wheels and respiration. Everything in between needs improvement, though.

But there’s always that next ride. Always the chance to have a great kick up a hill. Always that voice in the back of the helmet: smile when it hurts. Especially when you’re in the middle of the road.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back tomorrow for … something. In the meantime, check out the Tumblr page, where a new picture landed today. And the Twitter account, which had a lot of good reading today. And none of it was filler.