Last night Kevin, Eliza, Hazel, and I drove up to wine country to go camp out at the Six Sigma winery which was hosting the NorCal mountain bike semifinals. It’s an incredibly generous thing this winery does each year: hosting eight hundred scrappy teenagers on bikes (and their families) for a weekend of camping, riding, and communing with nature and each other. It’s the highlight of the racing season for our team and this year the land was exploding in purple lupines and orange poppies.  

But it is not conducive to swimming. Mountain biking races are all-in events and while at the last one Kevin and I managed to sneak away for a couple of hours to find me a swim, this time there was no chance for that. Instead, we baked in the sun all day, watching kids being awesome on bikes. 

We were sunburned and exhausted when we finally pulled back into Berkeley at 7 pm, but, ever-supportive, my family didn’t voice a single complaint about stopping at the Albany Bulb so I could jump in the water and get my swim in. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait too long because, devoted friend that she is, Angie raced down to join me, even though she’d already gone once that day.

It was a gorgeous sunset swim. Warm and wavy, I relished the feeling of washing all of that dirt and grime and sweat from my body, frolicking in the waves, and seeing off a long, satisfying day.

As an extra bonus, Angie and family fed us at the end of it all.