Wonderful Weekend

This was one of those weekends that are really fantastic. Friday night was an enjoyable dinner date with the hubby followed by coming home to see that the final parts for my bike upgrade had arrived!

Saturday brought nice weather, though a little windy, I managed a decent 30 mile road ride to the river. But Sunday really reminded me why I love mountain biking.

Headed down to Fair Hill with the hubby and one of his 'guys' teammates where we saw close to 50 people showing up to ride at Fair Hill. Some to pre-ride the race course and others just there to enjoy the trials. Got to talk with and ride with people that I hadn’t seen in way too long.

At one point I just sat back to enjoy watching all the riders coming and going. Once we finished pre-riding the race course we enjoyed a good lunch with the 'guys' group.

Later Bikewrench came over and grabbed the bike and parts to complete the 'upgrades' this week. Can't wait to do my next ride with shifters that "work" (for me anyway…)

The weekend concluded with the hubby and I enjoying a good dinner and a few beers.

What could be better... riding, more riding and hanging out with fellow mtnbikers, friends and the hubby...

(And ignoring any aspect of work until Monday)

Baker's Dozen... Nope

Not sure why I woke up today thinking it would be a great day. Heck, it’s Friday. Maybe that’s enough. But waking up I realized I’d been having all kinds of dreams (not necessarily good ones) about the upcoming race season. Just stupid stuff happening during races/season.

I slept here and there throughout the night, not a great nights rest but I’ve had worse. Woke up excited about the day, had the potential of getting a new job offer and was excited about the weekend since it looked like I could get some good ride time in. There’s only two more weekends before first MASS race and then the next weekend is the first endurance race, Baker’s Dozen. So I thought…

So that’s what I woke up thinking about. Racing.

I finish getting ready for work and that’s when the hubby says “do you want the good news or bad news first”. Bad news first, always (the good news second - you’ll end on the positive, I thought). Bad news – Baker’s Dozen is filled, registration closed. And nope, we weren’t registered… So what’s the good news? “You don’t have to ride for 13 hours”. So much for the goods news…..

I head to the office, still believing a great day is ahead. Dreary out with rain supposedly coming… no biggy, tomorrow is sunny. Ride time! Get in the office and find out a project is going bad. Might have to re-do it all this weekend for Monday.

And lastly, no job offer presented… supposedly still coming but not in time to celebrate it this weekend… or enjoy that feeling of relief knowing I’m leaving.


That kinda sums up my day.

Well maybe the final parts for my hardtail will arrive today and I can enjoy admiring them tonight after an enjoyable Friday night 'dinner date' with the hubby!

Terrific Tuesday!

2nd day of the workweek and what a terrific day! I made up some lame excuse (dentist) and left work for the afternoon. How could I not, hearing the trail conditions were perfect and knowing what a beautiful day it was there was no way I could sit in that office. (Besides I hope to be resigning from that gig in the next few days.)

So I left the office and got to meet up with the hubby and our youngest boy at the vet (our boys being three German Shepherds.) With the ‘all good’ from the vet, I took off for my sweet ass ride at Wissa. It felt awesome to be on the mountain bike. Climbed slow (which is normal) but the downhill’s felt phenomenal but I found myself searching out any technical line I could find.

This year is my first experiences on a hardtail and today was probably my third ride on it. I love the way the hardtail feels and handles. When I first started riding it was on a full suspension that I rented in Utah and I’ve been on full suspensions ever since.

Last Christmas (2006) I decided to get the hubby a hardtail and admittedly had the hope to ride it myself. He was debating between a 26er or 29er for the last year. But 2007 brought the 29er for hubby and the hardtail became officially mine.

Technically a ‘hand me down’ but I’ll be making a few changes on it for the season. Still I couldn’t be happier riding it.

Spring?

So they tell me that Spring is here. I wouldn’t know. In the office like normal and though I might have windows, they certainly don’t show me a spring like day. It’s freezing in my office (like normal) and I’m looking at extremely gray skies. Heck, it looks more like snow then Spring…

But hearing it’s the first day of spring, all I can think about is “if it’s the first day of spring, I should be ON MY BIKE!!” But I'm at work (not to mention the winds are gusting to 40+ today) Sure, I can get on the trainer after work today. That’s always so appealing. Yea, that’s called sarcasm. But considering the races I want to do and the amount of riding I’ve actually accomplished this winter (um.. close to zero) do I really have a choice but to force myself to do it. Add onto to it that I pulled up the forecast for this weekend. Snow showers Saturday morning – UG! Why does bad weather come in every weekend! (Okay, maybe that’s not true but it certainly seems like it. Maybe it’s just because so many days in the winter up here are gray, wet, dreary.. )

Now to be positive. Sunday looks sunny. Maybe Saturday afternoon and Sunday can be road rides. Mountain bike ride – I can’t even remember what that is. The trails (Wissa anyway) have been a sloppy mess for a while now..
I MISS MY MOUNTAIN BIKE!!

Forgot I was trying to be positive.

The season of Pink begins

25 days until the first race. Nope, not anywhere near ready or anywhere near where my goal was for this particular date. But all the same, the season will begin and I’ll make the season part of getting where I want to be. And here’s my “pink in the saddle” to document it all.

The goals…I guess there's three overall (but step one is getting the ‘extra baggage’ I carry with me each day to fly off .......and needless to say, I don’t care where it flies to.)

1) Podium for the overall sport class in MASS
2) Win a 12 hour endurance race, okay, where some decent competition actually shows. Sad as it is, many of the endurance events only have a few women. Though thankfully, the turnout seems to be improving.
3) Be able to ride with the hubby, serious rides, not just those when he’s doing the easy spin “recovery” ride

Speaking of the hubby, I came home to a couple nice surprises - some of my “gear for the season”. My theme for this year - Pink. So I came home to my Pink Twin Six school girl jersey and Pink helmet.
















Let’s just say he takes care of me. We even took the new goods out for a little spin, well, if you can call 7.5 miles a spin. Daylight savings helped, at least some kind of fresh air ride can occur, but I’m adding up those extra minutes of added daylight every day.

During that little spin we discussed me doing my first road “crit”. I’m a mountain biker at heart and gotta admit the thought of riding next to who knows what or who, I’m a little hesitant. I’ve always had the opinion that you can crash mountain biking or road riding, but mountain biking its more likely that at least I’ll cause my own crash. But I’ve gone from saying I’ll never do a road race to, well, kinda curious and intrigued.
Maybe next week…