I grabbed all my gear and got mentally prepared to get wet.  And get wet I did.  I think the hardest thing about riding in the rain is that first 2 minutes of pedaling.  No one likes to get wet, so when those first handful of wet leaves smack your arms, it is no fun.  Same with the spray off the wheels.  The first 2 minutes, you can feel the water soaking in and it isn’t fun.  But once you are already wet for 5 minutes, it really isn’t so bad.

The plan from coach was to just head out and keep the heart rate down, trying to help out with recovery.  Normally, I would take the road machine out, but I just put on my new gear combo and I wanted to see how  it was.  Not too bad.  I went out to the flattest trails that I know and just spun the legs over.  It was nice.  There is nothing wrong just going out for a fun ride and not needing to follow the numbers.

Data from the ride.

I took the road bike out and just spun around for about 1.5 hours.  Nothing too tricky, just turning over the pedals to get the legs going again and clear out some of the nastiness built up in the legs.

Last night was no good for riding as I had to go to the airport to pick up the Mrs. Tonight, I will return to the regularly scheduled program of recovery spins….hopefully it doesn’t rain….

Garmin 705 data of the ride.

Once back on the home ground, this have been pretty calm.  Due to rain, just about 24/7, I haven’t been able to get out on the bike.  Saturday was the first day in over a week that is was nice and I wasn’t raining, so instead of going for a ride, I took Campy for a walk.  It was good to get her out for the a little longer than the normal hour hike that we normally do.  That, and I got to see some killer views of town from the top of Kearsarge Mountain.

Now it is Monday, and it is back to business.  This week is a fitness testing week, so it is a bit easier than normal.  Tonight, the plan from coach is to keep my feet elevated and do some more resting.

More resting?  You got it.  I can handle that.

So here I am. Sitting on the “in-laws” porch doing nothing with my feet propped up. I gotta say it is really nice. I can’t remember the last time I just sat around relaxing. Unfortunately, tomorrow, my mind will be racing like Indy cars thinking about all kinds of things, plus starting the long process of driving the 16 hours back to NH. So for now, I am keeping my feet up and enjoying just “being” here with Kelly, our puppy and family.

With that in mind, I grabbed the bike and went for a little spin just to move the legs a little and get my mind off of some other things.  It wasn’t a long or great ride, but it was nice to be out there.  I checked out some new trails and gotta say they weren’t all that great.  The people who have been trying to make a trail network aren’t the best trail builders and when they cut down saplings, instead of moving a foot to either side, they leave about 3 -4 inches of the tree sticking out of the ground.  Gotta love hitting those when it is getting dark.

Either way, here is the map of the ride:

Friday night, I got home from work and had some work to do on some projects around the house.  I grabbed the pup and took her for a nice walk, but then it was all business from that point on.  Unfortunately, no bike riding came into play.

Saturday started off as normal, wake up, eat breakfast and get ready for the ride.  A few hours later, I was back home with little time for rest.  The ride plan was to head out for a few hours, attacking the short steep hills and grind out the long ones.

By the time I got home, the legs were feeling it, but that didn’t stop me from the rest of the day.  Another 2 hour hike with the dog and I was ready for some rest.  Nope.  Sorry.  After that, headed out to Home Depot to pick up some supplies for another project (more on that later) and I was spent.  Moving around 6 sheets of plywood and a handful of other things is tiring.  Thank goodness, I can finally sit down and rest.  Nope.  Time to mow the grass.  It was starting to look a little “scraggily” so it needed to be done.  I just got the mower away and Kelly informs me that I better get in the shower because in about 10 minutes we are expecting a bunch of people over for diner and a fire.  I finally crawled into bed around 1am completely exhausted.  What a long day.

The map of the ride

Elevation profile

I was planning on a nice 4 hour mtb ride on Sunday, so first order of business is walk the dog.  She always gets priority over just about anything else.  By the time we got back, the big storm was moving in.  After about 20 minutes of hard rain, thunder and lightning, I started on other things around the house.  An hour after the rain started, the sun came out, but the wind came with it.  Sorry mountain bike.  You weren’t going to get used today.  I was knee deep into other things and I just couldn’t quite.

That was my weekend in a nut shell.  It turned out much better than I thought it would.  From the forecast on Friday, I didn’t think it was going to stop raining, but luckily it did and I got one solid training ride in….I guess that is better than nothing..

The goal on Saturday was to take the mountain bike out for some hill climbing. Roger that. We have some hills in the area, so off I went. The plan was to head towards the Red Tail Trail and go up, the opposite of how most people ride it. As I got to the top of it, I was completely disgusted with the trail work that had been done with it. You see, the RTT used to be a nice technical couple mile decent that was fun to ride. Now, people who have no right working on trails have been out in full force. “What do you mean Mike?”, you might be asking yourself. Well, like I said is was a sweet technical descent, but people took that all away. Where there used to be some sweet rock gardens that you had to know how to ride a bike to get through cleanly had been completely removed. Where ever there was a rooty section that made you learn to ride a bike, has been filled in with dirt.  Seriously, who removes all the rocks from a trail and fills in the gaps between roots with dirt?? I’ve got an idea. Get off that stupid 8 inch travel downhill bike, get on something else and learn to actually ride a bike.  I have ridden with half of these kids and it is an awful experience. First, they have to shuttle the bike up, then at the slightest up hill, time to get off and push the thing. There was one time I road with a group and I rode the pugsley. I beat them all up the hill by minutes (and it is less than a mile uphill) and beat half of them down. It is just a shame that that is the future of the sport.
GPS route of the ride:

On Monday, time to dig out the hot rod road bike and crack out about 3 hours at a higher heartbeat. Consider that done. Nothing major.  I took out the road rocket and went over to North Fryburg for some nice rolly hills.  Good times.

GPS of the ride:

The rest of this week has been a pretty big bust.  It has been raining pretty steadily and I quiver when I think about riding on the rollers, so I have been spending some quality time with the dog, my common law wife (which I am now calling her) and the tivo.  Good times.

Other than that, I have to say I am getting pretty sick and tired of most things electronic. It is a shape that we rely on these things so much. First I was having problems with my play station, then I lost all of my info on my Garmin Edge and of course my work pc….when will it ever end??

On tap for today is a nice and easy 2 hour hike with the dog and after that some tlc for the bikes. I usually don’t get to do any major bike repairs during the weeks that I am training hard, so I take advantage of the free time during my off weeks. Time to pull off some chains and cassettes and make em look all shiny again.