LIVE LIKE YOU WERE DYING

I'm listening to Tim McGraw's 2004 song in part about his father, MLB Pitcher "Tug" McGraw; he was also inspired by the book of the same name, written by Michael Morris. Regardless of the inspiration, the lyrics touched a nerve with me. Maybe it's one of the reasons I mountain bike - it makes me feel ALIVE!

How many Woulda Coulda Shouldas can you come up with? What would you like to do if you knew you had only months to live? Who would you aplogize to and ask forgiveness from? Think about it....

He said: "I was in my early forties,
"With a lot of life before me,
"An' a moment came that stopped me on a dime.
"I spent most of the next days,
"Looking at the x-rays,
"An' talking 'bout the options an' talkin’ ‘bout sweet time.
"I asked him when it sank in,
That this might really be the real end?
How’s it hit you when you get that kind of news?
Man whatcha do?

An' he said:
"I went sky diving,
I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying.
"An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'.

" He said "I was finally the husband,
"That most the time I wasn’t.
"An' I became a friend a friend would like to have.
"And all of a sudden goin' fishin’,
"Wasn’t such an imposition,
"And I went three times that year I lost my Dad.
"Well, I finally read the Good Book,
"And I took a good long hard look,
"At what I'd do if I could do it all again,
"And then:

"I went sky diving,
I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying.
"An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'.

" Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what you’d do with it.
An' what did you do with it?An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it?

"Sky diving, I went rocky mountain climbing,
"I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.
"And then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
"And I watched an Eagle as it was flyin'.
"An' he said: "Some day, I hope you get the chance,
"To live like you were dyin'."

"To live like you were dyin'."
"To live like you were dyin'."
"To live like you were dyin'."
"To live like you were dyin'."

MIDWEEK RASPBERRIES

Hopkins and I decided to ride today after work, for me to blow off some steam and for him to get in a ride before he goes camping the rest of the week. Since we didn't have much time, we decided to meet at McAllister Park because it is only 5 or 10 minutes from our houses.

We rode the rock hills behind the soccer fields, then the rock garden trail near Jones-Maltsburger road. I decided to clip in to my pedals to get used to them since I've only had them a couple of weeks.

Wouldn't you know it, one of the screws came out and the shoe just rotated on the pedal like my last ride at Government Canyon. I had to stop on the side of the trail, take my foot out of the shoe which was still attached to the pedal. I was finally able to get it off and obviously didn't try to clip in after that.

We ventured to a creek just west of the dog park so I could show Matt some new trails. We found one downhill that was particularly intriguing, so we decided to give it a go. I went first and made it down in one piece. Hopkins went next and made it most of the way before he decided to gracefully bail from his bike.

I figured since I had so much fun riding it the first time, I would do it again. WRONG! I took the wrong line and wound up getting my front wheel stuck on a tree root. I dove over the handlebars and wound up getting matching raspberries on my forearm and leg...OUCHIE!

I figured I was due since I hadn't wiped out in months. Oh well, a quick shower and half a tube of Neosporin later, and I was almost as good as new. I guess I'll be riding solo Sunday since Hopkins will be playing Bear Grylls (Man vs Wild) in Central Texas somewhere. Hopefully he won't set the place on fire trying to show his kid how to start a campfire without matches or a lighter....

ROLLER COASTER RIDE!

Hopkins and I went for another three hour ride at OP Schnabel again this morning. This time I'm proud to say, WE DIDN'T GET LOST. We started off on the trail near the front of the park for a warmup, then headed south on the Leon Creek bottom.

After looking at Google Earth last week, I realized that we could probably ride the trail all the way South to Bandera road, so we did! We found a portion of Leon Creek that actually had water in it and took some pics. Bandera road is in the background.

After that, we decided to head back to the "roller coaster" section of the trail north of the golf course. As you can see, some of the hills are several feet high; I'm guessing 10 or 12 feet. We rode those trails several times until we were about to drop. By that time, several riders were showing up and we didn't want to chance broadsiding one of them on the trails, since they cross each other in several places.

By this time, we had ridden 2 1/2 hours and knew it would take us at least 30 minutes to get back to the truck, so we headed out. As I mentioned before, this time I didn't get us lost though! After a short hike where we actually had to carry our bikes up the side of a hill, we were back on paved trails. A couple of minutes later and we were back at the truck ready to load up for the drive back.

LIFE HAPPENS

The phrase above is familiar to those of you who listen to Dave Ramsey, author of the Total Money Makeover. Instead of the proverbial "shit happens", Dave says "life happens", and it is true.

For over a year now, Mel and I have been trying to stay on track with the principles outlined in Dave's book. Namely, build up an emergency fund, and start paying off your credit cards; lowest balances first. Dave says the emergency fund is for life's surprises and keeps you from having to charge these emergencies on your credit cards and get deeper and deeper into debt.

Case in point, Mel has been having car problems lately; rightly so, as her Chevy Cavalier is over 12 years old. Last month it was a brake job, this month a set of tires. Couple that with a pet emergency, increased fuel costs, etc, all of those things constitute "life happening".

It gets frustrating at times, because I've been wanting to go visit Michael in Dallas for months now. It seems like one thing or another always comes up that has delayed my visit. Now I am waiting for our tax stimulus check, but we aren't scheduled to get that until next month.

Every morning when I say my prayers on the drive to work, I ask God for patience. I guess this is his way of giving me practice. It could always be worse, considering today's economy. I am blessed with a good job, a loving wife and sons, and a couple of mutts who love me when they see me with treats in my hand.

We have also made strides in reducing our debt in the last year or so. In addition, Christmas was entirely budgeted and no credit cards were used in the yule tide merriment. I am also blessed with the ability to still ride my mountain bike every Sunday to exorcise the stress demons!

Speaking of which, Hopkins and I plan to tackle OP Schnable again tomorrow morning. I WILL NOT eat breakfast before the ride, as last week I learned a full stomach does not mix well with mountain biking.

This past week was a particularly stressful one at work, so Wednesday I went for a ride at McAllister Park after work. It's been a couple of weeks since I rode Mac, but I had a good 2 hour ride workout. Hopefully we'll be able to get at least a couple of hours in tomorrow.

Hasta la pasta baby!

OP PART DEUX

Last week Matt and I were able to sample only a portion of what OP Schnabel has to offer mountain bike riders. After looking the park up on Google Earth, I found a couple more trails that I wanted to try before heading back to the bottom of Leon Creek to ride the creek bed.

Since we got a late start, I decided to eat breakfast, which I usually don't do before a ride. Typically, I'll have a couple of cups of coffee and a couple of granola bars, which tide me over until after the ride. Today I decided to have eggs and bacon, which I rarely eat anyway. I'll NEVER do that again! For the first hour of our ride, I felt weak and thought I would toss my cookies at any minute. To top it all off, it was pretty warm outside, so that didn't help.

Yesterday I bought some new Forte pedals, which have a larger platform, plus one side has clips so you can clip in, or flip the pedal over and ride with regular shoes. I think eventually I will like the pedals, but I found myself being very tentative on technical sections because I'm not used to them yet.

We found some cool new trails at the front of the park that were a little challenging, but a good warm up. After resting for a few minutes, we headed to the creek bed. Along a portion of the creek bed trail, we found a high cliff with an overhang that some people were walking under. By the time we stopped so I could snap a picture, they had moved on. Here is Matt standing in front of it to give a perspective of how high this cliff was.

Then we headed to what we call the "whoop de do" section of trails just north of the Alamo Country Club Golf course. These trails are literally up and down, up and down, up and down, WHOOP DE DO! We both nearly ate it a couple of times, but survived.

We started heading back to what we thought was the park, but we wound up getting lost and Matt had a flat. We were pressed for time because Matt had an afternoon commitment, but we seemed to keep getting more lost than before. At one point, we actually made a circle and wound up where we had initially started.

FINALLY, after a 3 hour ride, we made it back to the truck, our legs burning with every pedal rotation. Totally spent, we loaded up the gear & bikes and headed out. We hope to ride OP again next week, since there were still more trails we could have explored, but time and stamina wouldn't allow....

CHANGE OF SCENERY

A couple of weeks ago, I met a fellow mountain biker at McAllister Park; his name coincidentally enough is Matt. It's nice to have someone to ride with since Bert moved to California in January.

Having a riding partner makes it tougher to blow off rides because the sun didn't rise fast enough, the wind is blowing 9 mph instead of 6, etc. In other words, it's not as easy to make excuses not to ride. Not only that, but having a riding buddy pushes your limits physically because you don't want to weenie out on a particular trail, or stop every 5 minutes to rest.

Like me, Matt rode years ago and decided to get back into riding on a regular basis. Last weekend we rode McAllister Park. Having recently moved to San Antonio, he wasn't real familiar with all of the trails it offers. Since that has been my "home" park for several years, I gave him the nickle tour.

Today, we decided to venture out to O.P. Schnabel Park on the Northwest side of town. The park itself only has 4 miles or so of trails, but if you find your way down to the Leon Creek bed, there are several trails that spiderweb for miles. It is VERY easy to get lost, so I would not recommend riding alone, or late in the day.

We did get lost a couple of times, but I ACTUALLY STOPPED AND ASKED DIRECTIONS. Any way, after a sometimes technical 2 hr 15 min ride, we decided we had had enough and headed back to the truck. This is a ride I definitely want to do again; now that I have a riding buddy - I can. Thanks Matt!