Half Century with the Dentist

And nope, I didn’t need any teeth work. Today was the Lake Nockamixon Century, or in my case, a half century. Our Dentist, who’s also a fellow rider and friend, was game for meeting up with me to do the Nockamixon ride. Friday night, after a few drinks, my optimistic side stated I’d do the full century. My Sunday morning realistic side acknowledged that I probably shouldn’t attempt to jump up from 20-25 mile rides to a 100 mile ride unless I really wanted the consequences come Monday morning. Which I really didn’t, I do have to function a little on Monday.

So it was decided to take it easy, have fun and just ride until we didn’t feel like riding anymore. The weather was beautiful and though all the roads were mostly my familiar riding roads, it was different than most just being an event, riding with the Dentist and a having a fair amount of people showing. The morning began with hubby and I going down there to meet all the Guy’s riders that hubby would ride with. Not my pace so it wasn’t even a brief thought to join them. The Dentist and I headed out first and the Guy’s were soon to follow. It was awesome watching them all fly by and in a pretty good size train of green. Not quite a blur thankfully, at least slow enough to exchange the quickly passing hello’s!

The weekend excluded any mountain bike time and I honestly missed being on the trails but it was good to just get some miles in. Unfortunately I started having numbness in my feet after about 25 miles which continued to the end and didn’t make me too happy. I wasn’t too surprised to have my nail-less toe be a little aggravated either. It was a ride that I wasn’t physically fatigued after though my legs are a little sore. Overall a good 53 mile day on the bike, enjoying socializing and spinning.

Plus the post ride conversation’s bring more excitement into next year already!!

But before I get too excited about next year, first is my excitement for next weekend. Seven Springs 24hr is calling my name. Besides looking forward to hanging out with everyone and having a weekend full of mountain bike time, it’ll be my first time riding there, first time doing an enduro on a team and first time at a 24hr event. I can’t wait!

34 days...

And my toe nail is gone. Still looks ugly as anything but now it's kinda creepy looking too!

Easy recovery ride in beautiful weather. Lot's of other roadie's out and about as well. Kayak's on roof tops everywhere. Still felt sore.. fatigued..

Post ride shower, went downstairs to bs with bikewrench and hubby. Mid sentence I realize my toe nail is perpendicular to my foot! Ewwwww!! Hubby thankfully took the "honor" to remove.

Poor bikewrench. He's had to witness this twice in two weeks with another fellow friend, rockstar, having the same occur. But her nail had hung on for 6 months!

Glad it happened after the Enduro.. it just seems wrong to have no nail there!!!

Change of plans...

Had a change of plans yesterday morning and decided that instead of doing 3 laps for the Iron Hill Sport Race, why not do the Enduro! It’s only four hours. Besides the Sport race wasn’t until 2:00 in the afternoon and the Enduro started at 9:00am. Not to mention that there was four of us in the short bus going down and the other three were already definites for the Enduro.

It was a great day of riding. Weather was perfect and the trails were in great shape for this fun, fast, twisty short course. I managed to put in 5 laps and finish 9th out of 10. Oh, I had no expectations of “placing” well but only to have fun and get some good riding in. Achieved and my body is fatigued today to show it.

My first lap was basically a jumble with all the beginner racers starting just behind us. Not to mention one stop to fix some trail markings that had been torn down, one stop to help a Jr. that crashed pretty hard and my third stop to fix my re-occuring chain suck issue requiring me to pull my chain out from between the cogs, it gets stuck in there pretty darn good! But, that’s the nice thing about an “enduro”, for me anyway it just becomes about riding and having fun, not pushing race pace. My second lap was a cool social lap just riding with Lisa while she finished the second and final lap of her race. Thankfully we were just social enough so that she didn’t lose second place in her race, but I think we caused it to be a little too close for comfort for her afterwards! My third lap was solo for the first half and I was just enjoying the trails. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the freight train of elite/expert racers would be on my tail. Once they caught my goal was just to make sure I’d be out of the way which I’m pretty sure I managed. There were many spots I’d be pulled over and just watching the finesse by which many of these racers ride. So much different than the beginner racers in the laps before, for the most part anyway. My fourth lap still had some elite/experts passing but I found myself zoning out a lot during this lap. Just going through the motion. But my fifth lap was solo with elite/expert complete and only a few other Enduro’s out there. I got my groove going again and even though I was tired, I was loving the trail and having a blast. Then I was done, and yea, my body was too!

Overall yesterday was just another great event where I got to enjoy seeing everyone again, a great day of riding, socializing and having fun.

And with that, I’m off for a little recovery ride. It looks like another beautiful day out there!

Been a while...

I just haven’t got around to an update. Sometimes I wonder why I’d update, why I blog, what do I have to say to everyone or anyone. I enjoy reading what everyone else writes. It feels as though I should, I feel like I want to. But honestly, sometimes I just wonder who is reading everyone’s blogs. It’s always surprising to find out who has ventured to your page and you know there are always those that you’ll never know that ventured to your page. Isn’t that what this is all about though? But really, I think my lack of update results from just that, my mind being all over the place recently without the ability to put it into a steady thought. This really covers many avenues of my life but intentionally I tend to keep this blog to the riding related aspects of me. Good bad or otherwise, this is just my place to talk, vent or cheer on the riding front. Mostly anyway.

So on that… One of my mental battle’s in the last couple weeks.. I’ve continued to be disappointed with my riding. Where I’m at verses where I believe I could be. Yea, old news… I started this blog by listing my riding goals for this season and technically I didn’t active any of them. About two weeks ago I set a strong plan in place and mentally set the stones in place for what was needed for me to improve. I felt determined. I know what I personally need to do but my biggest struggle is actually making it happen. I lasted a week on my plan. One week. One simple aspect of my plan was just trying to force riding or running into the evenings. I’ve failed. I managed two evenings of activity during my one week “on track”. But even then my plan was three nights and I fell a little short. Sure I ride every weekend, but never enough. I’ve even played with my nutrition even though most times that isn’t what causes my biggest weakness. But funny enough, I think trying to focus on “better” nutrition caused the opposite to happen. I went downhill after week one. Guess that goes along with my downhill love.. but that’s just supposed to be biking! Ha Ha Ha.

On the riding front… Last weekend went down to Iron Hill for a little riding of the race course. For me the purpose wasn’t as much to get to know the course but just have a great day of riding. Achived, mostly. Meet up with some other Guy’s and ran into many familiar faces. Iron Hill is a fun course and was in great shape, I was having a blast. Oddly though, I really fell off after 1 ½ laps and these weren’t pushing myself laps by any stretch. There were many stops. My body kinda quit, not like a bonk but just a suddenly lethargic feeling. I was lightheaded and my legs wouldn’t keep going so for “safety sake” I called it quits shortly after.

So how do I feel about racing Iron Hill tomorrow with 3 laps necessary.. Well. Very very uncertain. I’m hoping last week was just a fluke. But I know it contributed to me falling off my plan. If I can’t ride because of something I’m doing, trust me, I won’t keep doing it.

With racing occurring again, an update will surely follow….