With that in mind I decided to ride in, again, Friday to work. Note to self: Cover your ears, dude! It certainly was crisp, to say the least. But it was gorgeous, how gorgeous was it? About like this...
Yup, it makes you happy to be on your way to work. I headed out, it was about 50ºf, so it was long sleeves in all the way. Luckily I thought ahead to have clothes at work, the ride home should be warmer. On the way I saw deer, birds, the apple orchard FULL of apples (I wanted one SO bad, but I'm not one for left handing 'em), OH! and the traffic control device. If you've never seen these, its a giant trailer that has an LCD readout, and a radar gun to tell you how fast you are going. I was doing 20MPH on the flat on my MTB. Didn't get a picture though. I also got an amazing complement. Our Administrative goddess (if you knew what crap we piled on her daily, you'd know why I say goddess) said to me, "you know? You really are a totally different person when you ride to work. You're happy." Hmmm, you know, now that I think about it, what the hell? Seriously, how am I when I DON'T ride? Ouch. Anyway, what's NOT to be happy about? I got to ride in, I feel good, I'm totally awake and alert, I got to enjoy the sights, and I get to ride home! What could be better? The ride home was almost spiritual, it was about 70ºf the sun was out, and there was a hint of an autumn breeze. Shorts and short sleeves for sure. I played around for a bit, you know... take the long way home. I did go by the orchard again, man I need an apple when I get home. Rode a couple of country roads, some crushed stone, got in a couple monster hills just for good measure, and got home just as the sun was about to completely set.
Saturday was a wasted day. I did some work from home, got out and cleaned the yard in preparation to rake about 2 acres worth of leaves, had dinner and crashed out. But Sunday was a different story.
Sunday woke up, kinda late for me, and headed out to Church. Once Church was over thought it was way too nice to waste on yard work. So I changed, like quick, grabbed the camera , the bike and headed out the door. Hit the trails into town.
Into town turned out to be a trek out to Todd Field. Yes, THEE Todd Field. The Todd Field where CMHAHTDWCS is being held on Saturday. Coincidence? I think not. So after a hell of a ride out to Todd, I did a lap around (roughly) what was the course last year. Let me just say, it was a bitch! The hill, yeah, as bad as it looks. One lap about did me in. I took a minute to go over to Spin and hung there for a minute and wound up sucked into a conversation on why I should try the race. I jumped back on the bike again, and after botching the crap out of a second run around the course I needed to call it a day and head back... Things to get done. Bottom line is this; I think I might have come to the conclusion that I am NOT ready for it this year, especially not on a Rockhopper. If I had some time to try it out on a cross bike, and got comfortable with that maybe, but I don't know about the situation as it sits. Though my wife, Thom at Spin, and a couple of my closest buddies all think I should man the heck up and go for it, I keep feeling like I'll be better off waiting until next year when I'm better prepared mentally and (more importantly?) physically for it.Well all was not lost, I honestly thought I'd never be able to get one lap in and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. So now I think I need to take some time to set some goals for next year. I think I have an idea of what they'll look like, and I'll likely start blogging about them in the next month or so. For now, I know what I need to do. Keep up pushing myself, and step it up, like, big time!
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1 comment:
You'll know when you're ready to race Phun.
-B
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