Well it hit the fan.

Well, things with the mother in law (MIL) hit the fan yesterday.

Yeah I know this isn't about riding, but this situation affects the entire stress level of the household which directly affects my time and motivation to ride/train.

plus it is just so DAMN funny that I can't just keep it inside. It's also about as bad as it is funny, so it kinda equals out to this just blah haze that you wade through every day.

MIL and wife had huge blowout yesterday, while driving in the car and younger son (4yrs) old in back. Wife wanted to drop it, so they don't get in a car accident and didn't want to argue in front of kid..MIL wouldn't drop it, ended up with wife dropping her off at grocery store to 'check her blood pressure' and wife going to library parking lot in tears to meet me. MIL had said in a huff the she and the grandma were leaving. HURRAH!.. But I bet she was just getting my hopes up.

I called her husband who is a great guy, down to earth, rational. And just gave him a heads up on what happened. he knows how she can be, so he wasn't totally defensive about the situation.

This woman is just a piece of work. Passive aggressive, talks non-stop, all the time, in your business, constantly on my wife about this and that.

Let's see, she has 5 kids. One son hardly talks to her, she put the other son's wife in tears, she butts head with her other daughter, is at major odds with daughter's boy friend, was despised by daughter's original boyfriend, just put my wife in tears, so that leaves one son, that she could 'possibly' deal with. She doesn't get along with her new husband's daughter, daughter-in law, or sons. MMMMMM? let's see. common denominator here---HER. In her mind EVERYONE else is hard to get along with..EVERYONE else needs counseling.

Anyway, so last night she just sequesters herself in her room. doesn't talk to anyone. We have no idea if she is staying or going. tough call here. enjoy the silence, or break it to ask her what she is planning on doing.

But it doesn't look like she is packing. awww she got me hopes up.


Anyway, I'm hardly riding at all. Just doing some transional lifting at the gym. I want to get out but just having a hard time finding time. Can't even seem to commute with errands that need to be done. Between having to work in the field and picking up/dropping off kids at daycare, it's like I have to drive.

The less I ride, the harder it gets to actually motivate to get out there. It's like a negative momentum that occurs. During the 2 week hypertrophy phase that starts after one more week of transitional lifting, I won't ride at all maybe some commuting, as that phase just WORKS your legs.

But during the strength and power phases I need to start my endurance work, so man, i hope that I can motivate to get out in the cold and just get some of these miles in. I'll take some of my vacation time during the day to bust these rides out.

Last year, my endurance phase came at the absolute worst part of the winter here in VA. So I didn't do squat. It really messed me up I think for the first race in April. I so want to destroy that race. In all my years here, I've never had a good race there.

I am sending my 2004 Black 80 SPV fork back to Answer today to check out some play in the bushings. It's funny, some people would be turned off to a company for having to send fork in. But I dunno, I've been on Answer forks since my very first suspension fork -the manitou 3. And they haven't always been foolproof, but through it all, their customer service has been great. Fixed for free reasonable amount of cost. They sponsored our team for years and years.

Easy to work on, and tune. So I guess I'm brand loyal regardless of the inconvenience of having to take the fork off and ship it and be w/o a mountain bike.

We'll see what happens with the home situation. Ahhh.. in the words of some wise person.

take a deep breath....This too shall pass......