Ugh. Did you see that bus pass by? It had a picture of me huffing and puffing up a hill at approximately negative 5 miles per hour on the side. It is not an attractive picture.
I have ridden (is "ridden" even a word? It just seems so...grammatically incorrect) and raced bikes long enough to know that there are good weeks and there are tough weeks. Some days or weeks, you will feel like Jens "Shut up legs" Voight on the bike and some days or weeks, you will feel like a 350lb. man struggling to ride a mile.
You just keep riding.
If you can. I am doing the very best I can to squeeze my riding in when I can and Brian is doing his part to not-so-gently nudge me towards the bike. But some days? It just doesn't happen.
After my little jaunt up Ohio Creek Pass, I took my mountain bike out to Hartman. Here is something very important to note: IT WAS NOT RAINING OVER MY HOUSE. At all. In fact, I think I clearly remember Brian saying, "Go ride your bike! It looks good out there!"
Karma has it in for me because not only did I experience some serious rain, I also experienced some serious mud. The mud was so deep and slippery, I couldn't keep traction and ended up eating it more than once. It was like a cyclocross race in November in Portland. Except there was no one laughing at me or offering a beer hand up.
The bike clean up was epic. As in, three hours epic. The rainbow was also epic. The riding was decidedly NOT epic.
Murray and Molly and Nora, Hazel's favorite frenemy came to town and I dragged Murray on a one-way trip from Gunnison the Mt. Crested Butte. Murray started the pace at 20mph and I was certain I would die. I am getting old. It takes me at least 30 minutes to warm up. In that 30 minutes, I start slow, get a little bit faster and possibly sip some cappucino. Starting at 20mph was rough.
He got a little more generous after 10 miles and dropped the pace down to 15. Then I beat him up to Mt. CB, just to even the score.
Granted, he had a cold and has little experience with altitude. But whatever. I have to take my victories where I can get them.
Upon arrival at Mt. CB, I hiked to the top of the peak with Molly. That counts as training, right?
We take our mountains around here for granted so it was inspiring to hike with Molly to over 12,000 feet and watch her conquer something that was new to her.
Between the bike ride, the summit hike and the I Bar later that night, Tuesday pretty much rocked.
Aaaaaaaaand then...
Then I committed the Cardinal Sin. I didn't ride my bike for three straight days. Oh, I had my reasons.
All of them sucked. Though the one about my mountain bike being completely covered in mud was true and completely valid. Because dude. THREE HOURS of cleaning time.
When we went to Ouray for the weekend, I was all, "I am SO riding on Saturday." As if it was Brian's fault that I didn't ride my bike for three straight days. And because it is well established that I am a selfish bitch.
As penance, I rode from Ouray to Silverton over Red Mountain Pass. And then I turned around and rode it the other direction.
There might have been some coffee in Silverton to help me up and over the pass the second time.
About 400 vertical feet from the summit the second time, I just about bonked. My iPod started playing some trance music (uh. Thanks, Brian.) and you know what? That stuff WORKS. Under normal circumstances, I hate hate hate trance. But this time, the beat was just right and it drove my cadence and will power up.
So, can I get some trance on the West Elk please?
I should also mention that the night before, I probably slept a grand total of 4 hours. Poor Tygh was up all night with a fever and we were totally under-dosing him with Tylenol.
Oops. Parenting fail. For like, the 27 millionth time.
Also, you know what's fun? Hanging out in a tent with a sick baby who isn't sleeping. That definitely ranks right up there as Super Fun.
So now you see why I needed that coffee to get me up the pass again.
When I lived in Portland, I spent a good percentage of my days waking up at the butt crack of dawn to train. Since I am not currently in race training mode, I say PSH to that. I have been enjoying my 7:30am wakeups immensely.
Brian, on the other hand, is a perpetual early riser. He uses his time to conquer big rides and get serious miles and climbing in. And he suggested I do the same.
I don't know about big rides, but I did get in one early morning ride already this week.
Did I mention it was early? And dark? And cold?
I went anyway because seriously. Struggle Bus. NEED MILES.
Got a quick 30 miles in, got home and proceeded to stand in the shower for an hour. Must locate shoe covers for future early morning rides.
Which brings us to today. I found myself pleasantly child-free and decided it was a good day to do a long ride on the mountain bike. Plus, my road bike is in the shop so my options were limited (time to dust off the cross bike...).
I chose Deer Creek because...well, I don't know really. It's long so it qualified.
And it sucked. The climbing is 3400 and some change which is no biggie on a road bike. But on a 27 pound mountain bike and climbing over dirt and rocks and roots...it's a lot of climbing. My legs did not want to go. I tried cajoling. I tried bribery. I tried trance music. I tried Gu.
No dice. The brain and the legs were all in cahoots today, those jerks.
Not to mention, I completely ate it on the Upper Upper Trail, running in to a rock and narrowly missing an aspen tree. So I was scraped up, feeling tired and losing my resolve.
I finished anyway. For one, there is only one way to finish Deer Creek- to do the whole thing. Two, I hate to quit. Absolutely hate it. Which explains why I STILL finished my ride at Hartman last week despite apocalyptic levels of mud.
Deer Creek was the slowest bike ride of my life.
Beautiful. But very, very slow.
There might have been some walking.
Ok, a lot of walking.
But did I mention that I finished it?
These cows would move out of my way, then immediately back on the trail. So. Frustrating.
After the cow path portion. The cattle have been grazing near the trail and Holy Smokes the trail is in crappy shape. So so bumpy. My forearms will never recover.
All of that totally counts as good training, right? Because not only did I sign up for the West Elk, I signed up to race cyclocross in Grand Junction in September.
Yikes.
Though as long as it's not 134 road miles or 25 trails miles, I should survive. Maybe.
For now, it's time to calm my back and glute muscles down (they are sooooooooo pissed) and get some sleep. Right after I stuff my face some more.
