Health has been a bit sketchy all week. The body tired but there was lots of work to do still. Then on Friday I carried on and subbed in again for my friends hockey team. I did not get any goals and the rest of the team felt about as good. We were barely able to keep our first period lead and ended up in a tie. I had as much energy as an old man as ironically enough, the team we were playing against had an average age which was about five years older. On the way home, I could feel that my lower left back was sore, inside that is.
Next day I got up really late after getting about eight hours of much needed sleep. I immediately started work on the truck. The valve cover seal needed replacing. The other day we had my truck up on a hoist in my friends garage installing some new snow tires. I saw fresh oil from the recent oil change all over the top of the transmission and it was leaking from near the top of the engine. The inside of the aluminum valve cover was covered in a thick dark sludgelike layer of worn oil. With some paint thinner, I cleaned off as much as I could before putting everything back together. The other day, one of the headlamps broke so I had to remove half the front end just to replace both lights.
It was already dark outside before I had the hood closed and the back all loaded up with the supplies. I was late so I drove out really fast. Down the hill, across the low lying roads towards the river before crossing over the bridge. After crossing the bridge, I began to wonder what my driving would have looked like to the other vehicles on the road. They must have thought I was a mad man. I had about thirty minutes to stock everything at the home before continuing onward to a greek restaurant for a friends birthday. I was stuffed. I had the Greek Lamb Village which consisted of a huge portion of marinated meat. Following that, we went to a small theatre to watch a live play called "The Back Kitchen". It had received rave reviews from the recent Fringe Festival so someone suggested that birthday girl would have liked it. I started feeling sick towards the end of the play. I don't think it was because of the play.
Next day I got up early to go riding with an old university friend at 9am. Starting at the bottom, we rode all the way around to the back side of SFU or Burnaby mountain. The sky was grey and small pockets of fog were scattered in the lower levels below, extending out to Deep Cove and then Burrard Inlet. The view was refreshing from about three quarters of the way up. We had ridden about an hour and a half before getting to this spot with just another fifteen minutes to the top. Once at the top, we took a quick breather before making our way across campus to the top of Nicole. A slightly treacherous downhill trail covered in rocks, mud and littered with obstructions. At the top, three other mountain bikers decked out in downhill bikes and protective gear were practicing some small jumps on a grassy slope. My friend and I started down the trails quickly going much faster than I had the first time with the other group. We took a different route and soon found ourselves riding up to the three guys we saw earlier at the beginning of the trail. They pulled over to the side to let us through but no sooner than I had passed the first person of the group did I hear him crash behind me. I yelled out to see if he was alright and received a reply saying that he was okay as I kept riding on. My friend began telling me about our second ride up the mountain but the thought of the exercise was more than I needed. luckily, fate was in my favour and with just ten minutes left to the bottom of the trail, my back tire went flat. The ride now turned into my first ever cyclocross event as I ran my bike down the rest of the way.
Incidentally, during our ride up, we had received a phone call. One of my friends cycling buddy had broken his femur on Grouse mountain the day before.