First Mubarek, then me and now Ghaddafi?

All of us quality despots seem to be losing our gigs these days. For those of you who've been spared the ad-nauseum details on my last few rides, lets just use the term "differently-employed", shall we?
What do you say when you lose a job that you used to love but have grown to not love?
If you're me, you say its time to ride....actually I put hanging out w evel-jack, kidA and the domestic-goddess/employed person in the house as my first and most important role. Lets not kid ourselves, over the years theyve put up with some bizarre and erratic work hours that swung from never-home to "would you please get up, you're killing the grass" levels of hanging around.
So I have some time on my hands to enjoy my family and train like never before. I actually could have a spring where Im in a shape. Any shape other than oblong will be good.
If I dont sound as bitter as most folks in this position, its because I have friends with things going on that put day jobs into perspective-such as this post
Kinda makes a few weeks off work seem like not a bad thing, right?
'Zactly.
So I have several Gravel-Road races coming up such as the Sub-9 Death March, Barry-Roubaix and even a mtb race in Birmingham, the Stoney Lonesome XC.
Training for those events has been fun and something to focus on. This Saturdays' ride thru JMF(not sure what the J stands for, but you can translate the other 2 right?)was a great barometer of how fit Im not.
“It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired-you quit when the gorilla is tired.” Thanks Mr Strauss, but this go-rilla is knackered/shattered/dog-ass-tired. This mornings pre-work(for zack) mountain bike ride was just icing on the cake. It always seems a little like cheating when I've been doing big miles on the road bike and then get to play on the mtb.
We rode our first furly of the year this past week and I got the most training hours in that I've seen in a long time, so we'll see if it translates to a faster me or one that just bitches more about being tired.
Place your bets.
More to come and lots of Stoney Lonesome updates to follow.