Lumberjack'd

4 laps of a 25 mile twisty, sandy, not so technical trail looked a little something like this:
lap 1 : 2hrs 22min - feelin' good
lap 2 : 2hrs 24min - feelin' good
lap 3 : 2hrs 36min - gettin' tired, starting to cramp a bit, where'd my water go?
lap 4 : 3hrs 9min - first 17 gettin' by, cramping at times. last 8 miles - DEATH

I'm pretty sure the death was caused by two things: 1) the decision to ride the single speed that hangs in the garage and never gets to see the light of day and 2) my profuse amount of sweating had caused me to turn into a salt-sicle by the end of the third lap.

If you don't consider that whole death thing, the weekend was actually pretty nice. The weather was good, the trails were good, the drive up wasn't bad, nobody had to go to the hospital, and we weren't eaten alive by skeeters. (To ensure the skeeters stayed at bay, we picked up the most potent bug spray we could find at the local K-mart.)

and just for fun, a list of all of the body parts that cramped during the race:
1) Calves
2) weird little muscle that runs along the outside of the lower leg near the ankle
3) both forearms
4) lower back
5) left shoulder
6) hands
7) right adductor (owww)

So that's the official end to big, long, painful races for the year. Will I do any of these next year? Hmmm. We'll see.

manistee, mi

One week until the Lumberjack 100 and we have not secured a place to stay. Problem? Yeah, probably. Maybe the mosquitoes have some extra room.

blooms

Hello pretty flowers in my yard

From mccalley.blogspot.com

sheeps and lambs

Last Friday night, Dave and I made the drive to White Pine(you have to read "White Pine" with your very best southern accent) because we had gotten a tip that there may be many, many super cute baby lambs at the farm. It turns out that Mr. Ram figured out how to sneak over to the ladies' side of the fence, and, well, you know how it goes.

Dave managed to snag one

not a sheep

happy memorial day

enjoy some chalkboard pantry art.

Dear DSG,

I hate you.

After lots of debating with myself, I decided to give dirt, sweat, and gears a go. That was a bad decision. The rain we've been having made the course unrideable and downright miserable. It took me three hours to go about 8 miles of a 10 mile loop, and I should have bailed earlier. Most of that time was spent scooping mud off the tires and out of the frame so the wheels would turn while I was pushing it. I figured my bike weighed about 50 lbs with all the mud. Well guess what, someone found a scale and weighed a bike after it had come off the course...92 pounds. 92 pounds!!! I believe it - I couldn't even lift my bike to carry it!

It wasn't all bad though. Free beer and good people can make any bad experience go away. Erin even came down from Nashvegas to hang with us in the mud.
If you want to see the mud for yourself. Check out www.cyclingdirt.com for some good videos. The site is done by the same people that do Flotrack, so you know it's good stuff!

SERC #5 AKA Kenda Cup East Opener

First XC mountain bike race - first win. I think I'm going to go ahead and retire before they make me upgrade to expert class and I start getting my butt kicked. Press release on the way. Stay tuned....

This race was a much more manageable and totally more enjoyable (and not because I won) 16 miles rather than the 100 that I suffered through the previous weekend. For all you runners, this is more like the 3k-5k of the mtb world. Yay!

Oh yeah, you know how it's been raining every day since umm, forever? My drivetrain was none too happy.

Here's the short and sweet report
Lap 1
Neutral start behind a motorcycle, sat in third for a few minutes as we started to to climb. I figured that if I had any chance, I should try to gap some people here, so I went by the two people in front of me and pulled away. I was really surprised no one went with me, but I kept going until the downhill, sloppy, wet, slippery singletrack section of the race was hit. Since I didn't think risking life and limb was worth a Sport category win, I pretty much farted around and was really careful until we got back to the road section to start the second lap. Apparently, I was too careful because two big guys surprised me on the road with the second place girl in tow. Tried to latch on, but they gapped me too quickly.
Lap 2
Quickly caught the girl that passed me on the climb, put some distance between us, and decided that I should probably work a little harder on the scary sections if I actually wanted to win. So, that's what I did - I scared myself a little and it worked. Go me.

the lady to my right threatened me about spraying my bottle of bubbly malty type alcoholic beverage
(ok, not really, it was more a request to not open it)

I wish I had a picture of me post race because I have never been so muddy in my life! I asked if there was a place to clean up, and I was directed to the river. I had no choice, I was going in.

Knoxville had a nice representation in the single speed category - Dave 3rd, Caleb 4th, and Doug Parker 5th.


You're doing it wrong! A. why does everybody put their arms in the air? and B. why are you going to hand me all this stuff if you want me to put my arms in the air?