Peak/ed

I really want to thank everyone for the palpable waves of support you sent me for yesterday’s duathlon, my first in something like fifteen years.

It was not, I must say, the prettiest race of my life. I finished like a grabasstic fatbody, well behind center-mass of the pack, but you’ve gotta know that didn’t even matter. Prospect Park is never lovelier than in the half-hour either side of dark, and that’s just when we raced; between the gentle evening air, the stridulant song of crickets through the long tunnel of trees, and the good loneliness of pushing the bike out the far end of the loop, it was nothing short of a peak experience.

True, I did come to regret racing a single-speed messenger bike, with its race-suboptimal gear ratio, against all the Spandexed folks on their three-kilo unobtanium-fiber dreammachines – I probably gave five minutes to that one choice, easy – but overall the evening was so much awsum. Much love to Chris Fahey for making this happen, the organizers for putting on a rather lo-fi, unpretentious sort of event…and of course and as always my Nurri, who showed up just before the starting horn with a garland of balloons, a camera, and a huge smile for those about to rock.

You know what? I could totally go for another.