Life is short, but sweet for certain.

August 21st was the last day of freedom for the full-time residents of ASU. Throughout the week, the freshmen showed up and the campus started buzzing with new life, including cars, bikes, longboards, and clueless kids who compete for us grad students' space on the roads, sidewalks, labs, and sandwich shops. As I get older, the novelty of free food has worn off, and now that I am no longer coaching, the arrival of the new students just isn't as exciting as it used to be. I now understand why the grads at the Weizmann Institute loved their campus so much: with an undergraduate population of zero, it's summer break all year long there. Alas, not so much here. So as one last goodbye to the summer, some of us in the lab took one last trip to Sack's for a little bit of nutrition before we went into hibernation for the first few weeks of the fall semester. And then I crawled into my cave and settled in for a long winter's nap.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I need to do a bit more yoga in order for the cabinet to be more fun than dodging undergrads, so I decided to run away instead. After a nice evening with Martin and friends for his going away dinner, Hannah and I packed up the Jeep and headed up to Flagstaff. It was late when we started, and much later by the time we actually arrived at the site for the race that was to take place the next morning. There were a few RVs parked near the road, but we continued on the forest road to where we had seen some tents last year, and completely by chance found a few of the Missing Link guys camped out there. I was dog tired by that time, and we crashed soon after we got the tent set up.

After a surprisingly great night of sleep (cool weather will do that), we got up and started tinkering with the bikes in anticipation of the Absolute Bikes Old Fashioned Mountain Bike Race. The day got off to a bad start for the boys of ML, and after an unsuccessful bleed and refill of Brad's rear disk brake, he was out of the race before it even began and was relegated to the job of photographer. At 9 a.m., the rest of the ML boys and Scooby lined up for the start of the expert men's race, with Hannah and I following shortly in the women's sport race. We had raced the same course last year, with three of us in the class and Hannah coming #2 and me #3 after I flatted. This year there were still three in our class, but I had a new secret weapon: "five pound" (according to Hannah) thorn resistant tubes in my tires, and I felt very confident in my equipment. I also felt pretty good about how my training had improved since last year, and eagerly waited on the starting line to see just how much we had improved.

The race started well, and my lungs had become accustomed to the altitude as I spun up the beginning of the forest road. It didn't seem nearly as long as last year, and although I was well behind the leader in my class when I breached the top of it, I felt good as I took advantage of the descent. Unfortunately, Guy Bell was limping the wrong way when I zoomed past him, and our second ML racer was out of the race. The start of the singletrack was exactly how I remembered it, though. It started with a sharp curve and then a rocky incline as we all made our way up through the pines and meadows. I passed a few of the girls who had beat me to the trails and a few of the expert men passed me, but the women's leader was nowhere in sight. Soon enough, I came to the rock gardens that I walked my bike through the year before. I was happy to realize that I was much better at navigating them and picking a line through tricky stretches, but with the amount of bike traffic going through the area, I still found it hard to get into a good rhythm and was happy when I arrived at the pipeline forest service road for two steep ups and downs before returning to the singletrack and the best part of the race. The last few miles is entirely composed of fast, curving, descending hard packed singletrack. Aka, pure heaven. I consider this type of riding my forte (mostly because it is so much fun), so I was flying along having the time of my life until I found myself back at the beginning of the loop. Another woman and I were battling back and forth when we got back to the fire road, so when I found some new adrenaline after passing Brad, I passed her for good. I got some new adrenaline after pulling ahead of her, and before I knew it, I had reached the top, where I met up with Bill. He was obviously having some bike issues, because as I came up to him, he was in the process of kicking it. There wasn't anything I could do, though, so I started cruising down to the singletrack. I was a bit more tired this go around, so I didn't clear the rocks as well and had to walk some sections. Fortunately, I had the downhill section to end the race with, and it was just as fun on the second loop. After 2 hours and 33 minutes, I rolled across the finish line, the first for ML and almost an hour faster than last year. I was followed shortly by Scooby, who did well in the geared expert 30 miler, and then Bill, who ended up only completing 2 laps, and then Hannah at 2:52, and finally Jason who finished the 30 miles in the single-speed category just before the time cut-off.

After the main races, the kids race kept us quite entertained with ages 5-15 competing in an 1/8th mile loop. It was the cutest thing to see pint-sized kids in spandex and helmets bigger than themselves pedaling as hard as they could. One girl on a pedal-less training bike even finished a lap and shot her little fists into the air at the finish line. Too cute. I have an uncanny feeling that my future kids will be somewhat similar.

It started pouring and hailing soon after the finish of the kids races, so we raced back to the car and loaded up to head back into town for some grub and awards. After a quick bite at Altitudes and some free pizza at the Pay 'n' Take, they handed out awards and Hannah and I officially switched spots from last year, with me taking home the silver sprocket and Hannah taking the bronze. The girl that won should have been in the expert category, and I think I'm going to enter into it next year for the sheer fact that I like longer races and there is more competition, even if I'm not quite an "expert" yet.

We headed home after awards so I could get in a quick shower before heading out to west Phoenix to the Cricket Music Pavilion with Megan and another ulty player, Brian, for the Dave Matthews Band concert. It promised to be an emotional concert, as one of the founding members of the band, LeRoi Moore, passed away just a few days before the concert. Unfortunately for the crowd, just getting into the venue was emotional, as the Will Call machines were down, and it took 45 minutes for us just to get our tickets. It's not often that you see a crowd of angry hippies, but we managed to keep our cool as we got into the pavilion midway through the opening song. We spread a blanket at the top of the lawn and basked in the incredible music and atmosphere of the concert. The sax player from Bella Fleck filled in for the fallen band member, and as expected, it was a very emotional concert, made all the more incredible by the lightning storm that was playing off to the east and a sprinkle of rain that fell during the middle of the show. The incredible musical talent of the band has always held me captive, and so many of the songs were the soundtrack to my days at Purdue and will always hold a special place in my heart. Even though it was only my 3rd Dave concert, each one is magnificently unique, and this one was no exception. I had never heard Two Step as I heard it that night, and its lyrics really hit home for all of us in the crowd as I am positive it did for those on stage as well. By the last instrumentation, everyone in the venue was dancing. It was a beautiful thing, and I drove home through the night with a smile on my face.

It had been a long week, and though there were many grad student activities and mountain biking opportunities on Sunday, I slept solid until 10 a.m. It was absolutely refreshing. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the pool and hanging out with Jack and some friends and gearing up for the start of the school year.