The Ultimate Night...

For the second week in a row I found myself at the Downing town ride. It seems the more I do this ride the better I feel there. Once again the Beans Boys put together a great loop. It is never the same loop twice. Marc and Ben even cut in a new trail, which cuts out a hike a bike. As we started to descend Marc du'Ez, it started getting dark. None of us had lights so it was going to get real interesting. Needless to say it took a little longer that usual. The problem is we still had a good half an hour to go. Next came the school climb, basically a trail that follows a gully. By now it was all the way dark and hard to avoid falling into the gully, which I think a couple of guys did.

Some how we managed to make it out in one piece. Next came some fine ales and good food. Always worth the the trip.

I was then told about the new tradition after the food and beer the boys pick sides and play Ultimate Frisbee in the parking lot. Since I didn't have to work the next day I was up for it. It was a blast, although flip flops are not the best choice of foot wear. We ran around the parking lot throwing a Frisbee to each other until about midnight. I think it was harder than the ride. I know my legs thought so because they still hurt.

Next week I will bring sneakers.

One last thing. Rachael and I watched Hot Fuzz last night. Hilarious, definitely worth viewing if you like British humor.

Cheers,
Buddy

When Did It Happen?

I was thinking about this just the other day. When I started racing mountain bikes it was strictly cross country. As a sport racer the course would be about 15-18 miles, and would take an hour and a half. Then I made the move to expert, now I was racing 24-27 miles and these races would take two and half hours. I had a lot of fun doing these races, always racing the same guys week in and week out and I got to meet a lot of cool people along the way.

Now I don't take a race seriously unless it is over 35 mile long. I remember when a 3 hour training ride was a long day, and I would be exhausted afterwords. If I don't get in at least one 5 hour ride a week it feels like I didn't do enough. Is this a natural progression? I'm not so sure. I have only seen a handful of guys make the jump to endurance racing. What is it that drives us? Is it that we want to know just how far we can push ourselves? Or is it the promoters always putting out a new challenge.

What ever the reason, it seems like I have found my niche. I may not be the fastest endurance guy, I may not see a whole lot of podiums, but I do enjoy seeing just how far I can go, and how hard I can push myself.

I did get in a couple of nice easy quality rides this weekend. Plus I picked up some reliable nutritional advice from Amazin' Andrew. I am looking forward to a couple of tough rides this week where I can experiment with my nutrition.

I am once again looking forward to the SM100, and I am hoping to knock an hour off of last year's time.

Cheers,
Buddy