I'm Listening to Adele Right Now

I know you know this, but dang, that girl can sing.  It's not the sort of music that I listen to much, but sometimes.

I've always been a big fan of Amy Winehouse too.  But I'm not listening to Amy Winehouse.  I'm listening to Adele.  21.

It's on Amazon Prime.

But that's not what I came here to tell you about.  It's more of an icebreaker.

Is she saying "We could have had it all.  Pudding in the deep?"

Ok, so I don't really look at song titles too closely.  I went back just now to see the lyrics (an Amazon Prime feature) and noticed the title of this song is "Rolling in the deep."

How was I hearing "pudding?"

Truth is, I'm always hearing pudding.

But that's not the main thing on my mind today.  The main thing on my mind today is last night's WNW.

It blows me away how much a ride like that affects my mood. A bad ride will literally ruin my next couple of days.  Yeah - it means too much to me.  I know it.  So what?  FTG.

I have a ton of coping mechanisms (excuses) lined up in the case of a humiliating performance.

"Yeah - I didn't get much sleep last night."

"I had a bunch of meetings on the 4th floor today (my desk is on the second floor. I have a lot of meetings on the 4th floor.  I can't justify taking the elevator 2 floors. So sometimes, I use up precious WNW power on the stairs between 2 and 4 at HQ)."

"There were no Cat 3s there (only Cat 1/2) and I'm a cat 4."

"My vagina was all gin soaky."  and so on ...


But on those rare occasions when it goes well (as it did last night), I'm ever so temporarily happy.

I haven't been dropped before Ft. Calhoun all year.  I have been dropped at the Surfside climb every week.  In fact, there have been just 2 times ever that I've not been dropped on that climb.  But both of those were due to the group going a little slower than normal.

Last night though, I was still dropped, but not until the very top of the climb.  I didn't even have the strength to catch back up on the downhill.

But I was really happy anyway.

Usually, there's a terrific acceleration from the group as the climb starts.  When this happens, I tend to try to stay with the group as long as I possibly can.  Then boom.  I'm done.  I can't keep it up.  Everything shuts down momentarily until I can catch my breath.

But last night was different. JWait wasn't there last night.

We still went good up the hill, but it was a steady effort I could mostly handle for a while.

Back in 2013, I went up that hill with Rafal.  We were trying in vain to catch the group that had just dropped us.  We took turns pulling.  I worked harder than I ever had.  I tore myself inside out and had my best time up that hill.  3:10.  Not bad, all things considered.  It's a 1.1 mile segment with an average 3% grade.  It's kind of steep at the beginning and end, with a mostly flat middle section.  3:10 is still an average of 21 MPH, so yeah.

But after I did that (in 2013), I decided I'd set a goal of under 3 minutes.  I tried a few times when I figured the wind would help me. But no.  Never. Not even close.

Until last night.  Last night, I had no idea if I'd beat my 3 year old personal best, but I thought there was a shot. I had felt really good for the whole ride, but you never know.  Maybe everybody is going easy or something.

But when I got home and looked at the results I couldn't believe my luck.  I set a new PR of 2:59.

Good enough. Perfect in fact.  The best time up that hill is a ridiculous 2:48 (24 MPH) held by Paul Webb and Jordan Ross, so those guys are safe from me.  I'm just happy to be on this side of 3 minutes.  With 13 other people (357 people on the outside, ringing the bell).

Yeah - this shit definitely means too much to me. Oh well.  I guess I'd better give it up again.

Now I can return to golf.  Finally.

Thanks for all the bike rides, guys!

I don't know what this Adele song is, but it really is quite emotionally stirring.  Hang on, I'll check for you.  Ok it's called "One and Only" and it's something special.

Woah now she just started singing a "The Cure" song. I don't know what it's called (again with the titles).  But her version is excellent.  Here's the Cure for reference:

But 'Cube.  What was that about "Golf"?

Shh. Quiet. I want to hear this song and just weep and rent my garments in twain and stuff (it's now after the "The Cure" song because it took me a couple of minutes to go get that video above).

I can tell Adele is very sad in this song.  She remembers that this guy she's sad about said "Sometimes it lasts, some lures, but sometimes it hurts instead."  But she's so sad, it sounds like she's saying "in stayed."  I bet that guy was totally some skinny-ass bearded hipster type, too (this was 2011).  Poor Adele. FTG.

Also, I don't think she's saying "some lures" because that makes no sense.  But whatever she's saying, I feel real bad for her.

So there's that. Sniff.  But dang.  She can sing.