First ride of the season...

An accounting of my prior three summers:

S1: Working from home under intense pressure, long hours (including more than occasional work at 11pm), and serious intellectual stress.

S2: Working at a "family-friendly" firm in Seattle, billing people for 6-minute increments of my life, and commuting 2 hours a day.

S3: Working full time while studying for the bar and breaking out in shingles.

I recently found myself wondering why I was consistently out of shape and slow during the "fun, relaxing" summer months. Answer: see above. Duh.

However, I am turning over a new leaf. I will only be working a single, 40-hour per week job this summer. What a novel concept! As a result, my plan is to break out of the "out of shape and slow" mold... and actually have some fun playing outdoors during the next few months.

This past Saturday was the first installment of fun outdoorsy activities... mountain biking! After unsuccessfully attempting to navigate two trails that were beyond our skill set (note: walking while pushing mountain bikes up steep, narrow mountain trails is not fun), we actually found a fun mountain trail. We were quite proud that we were able to take this picture at the top of the mountain that we had just climbed on our trusty bikes (note: picture has now been removed under protest from one of the individuals pictured).

After we had navigated our way down the mountain, Chantal and I were riding smoothly along a paved road. Sharon, imitating a rabbit, was bouncing up and down on her pedals on this paved road... and succeeded in destroying her shin when her foot slipped off the pedal and her shin scraped all the way down that long rabbit-like bounce. Who would have thought that bouncing up and down on [metal, jagged] pedals isn't always a good idea?

If you ask her how she got this beautiful injury, she will report that she got it "while mountain biking." However, between you and me... I'm pretty sure biking in third gear along a paved road doesn't quite qualify as mountain biking.