I had a restless night thinking about things that I have on my to-do list right now. Riding to Recovery has been instrumental in keeping me in balance with all of the other things that are going on in my life. It sounds cliché, but it centers me. So instead of tossing and turning I got up and watched the early news from the BBC. I finally got back to sleep around 5:00 am, and by then I knew that I’d be behind schedule for the whole day, which ended up to be the case.
I left for my ride at 9:52 am. I was supposed to leave at 8:00 am so that I could be back to take a hike with a friend at 11:00 am. That’s what not sleeping at night will get you. So I took off for the mountain on what was a grey and overcast day. Fortunately it wasn’t too cold since the cloud cover had kept the temperatures up. It’s so nice being on the mountain when storms are coming in. It feels like I’m right there in the middle of the mix of the various cloud types. Sometimes it feel as though I could ride right onto the clouds and into the sky. That would be a nice journey.
I rode up to the West Point Inn, and then without stopping, I headed over to Pantoll Station via Old Stage Rd. Once there, I noticed that the mountain was open again to vehicle traffic during the week. Hmmm, I better not go there. I then descended down to Gravity Car and returned to Mill Valley via Railroad Grade. Today's ride was one of my regular I’m-in-a-hurry-rides that is very satisfying since it gives me a good workout, and also a reasonable amount of mileage and elevation gain.
Today I finally fulfilled one of my promises to Tugboat. I took him to the beach and let him run wild. We were joined by our friend “C” who had never seen Tugboat in his full and unrestrained glory. He ran in circles at full speed, which is impressive. "N" and I used to call it doing crop circles when Lune used to do the same thing more than a dozen years ago. Tugboat really needed a good beach run, and he definitely got that today, but he also got to socialize with a myriad of dogs, big and small. His first set of dog noses in his butt came from a pack of Husky-Malamute mixes. There were five or six of them, and they were all bigger than Tugs. His hair was up as he was surrounded by these dogs which happened to all be males. There was every opportunity for a problem, but Tugboat managed to stand his ground without being too confident, nor too submissive. He was balanced. Any other posture would have led to trouble, and I wasn’t interested in diving into a dog brawl. ;-) I stood by like a concerned papa, but he did great on his own.
We continued on our way.Tugboat would go off to hunt tasty seafood morsels, then he’d sprint back, and then he'd head off once again. About a half hour into the walk he went on one of his full speed passes which ended with him cramping. He was rolling around in the sand while whining as his hind legs cramped. The silly boy had gone out too hard and too fast. I briefly massaged the cramps out, as I've done for him in the past, and he was as mellow as could be for the rest of the walk. He's a smart boy.
Tugboat will sleep well tonight, and I hope that I do too. I feel like a better dog dad after fulfilling my promise to him. I wish that I were Tugboat. ;-)
Distance: 17.47 miles Calories burned: 1,665 Time: 1:38:26 hours Elevation gain: 2,408 Garmin Connect ride details: Distance: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/18461629
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