The Truth Hurts

But trying to race for 6 hours is going to hurt more, especially when my buddy, Matt Keeven, is going to be punching tickets aboard the pain train. I have never walked into a race less prepared then this one and am kinda intrigued to see how it goes. I have a feeling it's only going to "go" for about 2.5 laps, but we'll see I guess... I have been unintentionally tapering for it a little as you can see...

9/1-9/7 = 6.5 hrs (week of Greensfelder)
9/8-9/14 = 3.05 hrs
9/15-9/21 = 6.7 hrs (week of Hermann)
9/22-9/28 = 3.83 hrs
9/29-10/5 = 3.68 hrs

From Jan- Sept I averaged around 12 hours a week so this was clearly plenty of rest to get me ready for CX racing. I have actually started to feel a little sluggish and started sleeping way more. Time to ramp it up a little bit and what better way then a 6 hour mountain bike race. Keep in mind that my front tire is still flat from the Greensfelder race. I should probably get my bikes ready today and go shred the 1/2 mile of single track in the FoPo a couple times to get the feel of riding off road again.

Being back in Beantown was great. I ate some form of seafood everyday and was putting back a 1/2 dozen oysters before most meals. I miss fresh seafood and Jen and I don't buy it here because it sucks. I managed to get a little riding in, but it ended up being a lot more running. East Coast single track is not so conducive to riding CX bikes on. I had to run the 3 miles home from the trail twice due to multiple flats. I did get some decent dismount and re-mount practice though and am feeling a little more efficient.

The fishing pretty much sucked. A big storm moved in right when I got home and shut things down. I was fishing from 9 pm to 9 am and it just wasn't happening. I was catching fish sporadically but wasn't finding any pods of bigger feeding fish so it was by no means consistent. I caught a pretty nice fish which was just shy of 40" and a little less than 20 lbs and had my buddy Jon there to snap a pic... The rest of the week was more of the same as I managed to have some fun catching 20-30" fish and a couple bigger fish in between. The last morning I went down with my dad and hooked up with a nice 35" fish on a top water plug on the first cast which I filleted up (about 10 lbs of fillets) and froze to bring back to Jen. We had some the other night and it was pretty tasty.

It was awesome to hang out with my family so much. My mom had a big fandamily get together for me and it was pretty intense with all my nieces and nephews running around like crazy. My brother and I went out to eat at some nice restaurants and I got to hang out with my godson Charley quite a bit. He is turning into a little person instead of just a smiling baby. He's quite a character. I saw a couple of my buddies but kept things pretty much on the DL and managed to get some much needed rest.

I picked up some more nasty food poisoning from a yogurt parfait at Starbucks just outside of Indianapolis on the ride back. It's ironic that the same thing happened before my vacation in July and this time at the end of my vacation. Weird.

I hate to admit it, but of all the music I put on my Ipod for the trip I ended up listening to some Phish shows I haven't heard in a long time. I probably listened to Phish 34/38 hours I spent in the car. I love the sound of a soundboard recording of a good show on a decent car system with the windows down... It just works.

Time to go find my mountain bikes and ride for a couple hours... I hope I still have some maltodextrin powder somewhere?