Casting off the shackles.....

The last few days have not been conducive to cycling much less life.  Work has reared it's head in most parts of my life.  Deadlines approaching, multiple projects trying to push their individual versions of code into the system at the same time.  Checking, and double checking and removing and adding others code from mine.  Critical issues abound.

I had determined this morning I would take a long ride before starting work to make up for the late night.  Well, I made the mistake of checking in before I left and before I knew it it was 2:30 and my daughter had returned from School and I still had issues to watch,  though the lion's share of the work was behind me and moving into someone else's bucket.  Still,  I rued the fact I hadn't gotten out for a ride.  There was pressure inside this cooker and the steam had to come out.

Around 7:30 my wife told me she could put the kids to bed and sent me out into the night.  what a beautiful night it was.  No wind,  the air was still and 60 degrees.  Gotta love 60 degrees after 8 at night.  I needed to drop all this stress and a rather large dinner in the hill country.  I decided I could get 3 repeats of Las Sendas in and back before 10 so I went for it.

Climbing at night is peaceful.  Yeah your sweating,  yeah your breathing hard,  but it is just you your breath and the night.  You are more aware of your body and your mind is free to contemplate the universe out there in the night.  The slow speeds of climbing are conducive to  states of mental sightseeing.  The mind wanders here and there as your body climbs up through the night.  Occasionally it is disturbed by the cars but in general, the brain can slowly take a breather and let the body do the work.  One can worry about what the sound of one hand clapping is (it's a zen thing I'm told).

The end reward of course is a good healthy tired and a pretty view of the city lights from up on the side of the mountain.  Tonight I can actually see a brown cloud over Phoenix despite it being night.  Yikes.  Glad I live up in the east valley.