One Seventeen

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 164.5%, 7.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 166.5#, 9.5% BF

Morning weigh-in (Friday): 165.5#, 9.5% BF

 

So, uh...

 

Rode the benchmark ride last night, did it in 1:17 for an 18.7 mph average -- that included city traffic and a long stretch of major road construction on Bushkill drive. I didn't feel particularly good, but going fast felt easy... Why the fuck couldn't I have been riding like that last Saturday? (One reason: last Saturday my strategy was to attack the hills, figuring that a slight speed gain at low speeds would chip away the most time -- I still think this is true, at least in terms of math and theory, but in practice I think I might have worn myself down too early in the race, leaving me vulnerable in the later, also-time-eating singletrack sections. The big test on "the benchmark" is Upper Mud Run Road, and I went up that no faster than usual.)

 

Other than that, lets see: rode Tuesday, a nice easy road ride, maybe 20 miles or so. I stopped in at Brian's house, found him watching TV on a perfectly nice day -- turns out he'd had another heart operation and was required to take it easy for a while. Hopefully this one -- sort of like cauterizing aberrant cells to get his heart beating normally again -- will be the procedure that works.

 

Wednesday was yoga with Carmen, and I totally felt my recent lack of practice. That's bad, because the "old Carmen" is back, and her classes are starting to get tough again.

 

Last night after the ride (and after a little cleaning/laundry) I went down to Porters, which was this week's Christian's Spring Hotel: me, Anne, Joe & Sally, Judy, Lee, Mike, and Larry & K-Jo, we had a big table in the back room. That Sally had some hilarious stories... Most everyone else left early, but Anne and I stuck around to catch some of the open mic show.

 

Maria was singing, and I pointed out how she sometimes would get this very serious, daggers-shooting-from-her-eyes look; this morphed into a story about seeing Laurie Anderson a few years ago, where she told a story about her dog, which in turn morphed into a story about 9-11, and she didn't say it, but her eyes were daggers by the end, as if to say "this happened to me and my friends, fuck you for trying to co-opt it into your little games."

 

Tonight is the towpath, maybe the Delaware one if it's been fixed enough to ride, followed by sushi downtown.

Thermidor Number Nine

Morning weigh-in: 166.5#, 9.5% BF

So OK, the anniversary of the collapse of The Terror and the death of Robespierre were over the weekend. I've been saving that blog post title for a while and damn if I wasn't going to use it...

Did the beginner yoga class last night, it was about all I could handle but my body feels a lot better today. Dinner was cereal (sigh), left over from the camping trip. Tonight I'll probably have a pork loin as long as 1) it thaws out in time, and 2) I don't go to ride Sals. My plan is to do a road ride though, so I should be good.

Meantime, I have to come up with a new chili recipe for the Bash. I think I'll lean more towards pork, potatoes and black beans, do a little experimenting over the next few weeks.

101: Done, And Done!

Morning weigh-in: 169#, 7% BF

 

Wilderness 101: Well it's done, and though it was not as well-done as I'd like, I did see some improvement: my "aim for the stars" goal was to break 10 hours, and my "aim for the stars and maybe hit the moon" goal was, say, breaking 11 hours. My actual time was 11:59:54, so I (barely!) broke 12 hours, but that was a half hour faster than in 2004, the last time I did this. Aim for the stars, miss the moon, but I at least landed in the top of the tree...

 

Drove down Friday night and hooked up with Greg & Judy, and Eric B, at the campsite Greg reserved for us. (Joe & Sue were at the same campground, but they were in their pop-up camper while we were out in the boondocks at a primitive tent site. We saw them in the morning.) I won't get into the blow-by-blow, mile-by-mile or anything, but the race itself was really nice. It started around 7:00 AM Saturday, with a very similar course to the one they ran last time I was there: the first 40 miles or so were mostly (dirt/gravel) Forest Service roads, there were a few really big hills between miles 40 and 60, and then just over half of the remaining course was singletrack. The weather was primo, terrain was in great shape, you couldn't have asked for better conditions -- I joked with Joe afterward that, except for my time, I had a great race.

 

(I did crash once though: I came across a guy walking one rocky downhill, had to dismount to get past him, and hooked my bike shorts on the nose of my seat when I got back on. Bouncing through the rocks, trying to unhook my shorts without mooning anyone, I eventually went over the bars. I continued down the hill sans bike for a ways, but at least I still had my shorts on.)

 

The guys I went down with all had great days: Greg broke 11 hours with a time of maybe 10:50, Eric had 10:15 (wow!) or so, and Joe got 9:45. (Congratulations, you lurkers! I'm not giving up the Camelback, but I may have to take up sailing.) They were waiting for me at the finish when I arrived; I got & filled my commemorative pint glass -- I love mountain bike races -- showered, changed, grabbed some dinner and joined them to watch the festivities. We stayed until the last rider came through and the kegs were emptied -- something I don't remember from last time, three half barrels should have been plenty for a bunch of exhausted racers, but there were some West Virgina boys doing "keg stands" and they made short work of the beer. Anyway, party over, back to the campsite where I slept like I was dead. Yesterday I drove home & took care of the camping gear, then spent most of the day eating (Quadrant, Porters, Taco Bell) and sleeping.

 

Tonight is yoga (I am still kind of sore), then tomorrow I may do an easy road ride.