Today I loaded up for a short ride at Waverly.  I have been riding the trainer so my stuff is scattered, shoes and hr monitor/gps downstairs, cold weather clothes in the laundry room, etc.  I got everything (so I thought) together and headed out.  As I pulled into the park I stopped at the top of the hill and got out to inspect the trail everything was good to go so I decided to hit it.  I parked, got out and started gearing up and noticed that I didn’t have a helmet.  I had a decision to make, miss out on the ride or just go and take it easy and pray not to crack my skull.  Clearly, I took the 2nd option and decided to make it a little more than just a slow ride.  I decided to not let myself get faster than around 10 mph any place I wasn’t completely under my own power, down hills, etc.  This effectively killed any momentum and made me climb everything from essentially a dead stop, it was a hard ride but a fun one (believe it or not) I rode the race loop backwards and had a pretty good time. 

One thing...

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This weekend we went to Eastern KY to see the parents and on the way we stopped at Cave Run so I could have a ride. My wife and I have a pretty good compromise on riding trips at Cave Run, she drops me off and then gets to drive into town to eat at Melini’s (her favorite local restaurant) before coming to pick me up.  We pulled into the Visitor’s Center (Centered in the map below) about 3:00, by the time I got changed and ready to roll it was 3:30 and I knew I would be racing the sun to get out of the woods.



After entering across the road from the Visitor’s Center, the ride starts off...

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Normally Thanksgiving, and all other major holidays, begin with an early start and a long drive back to Lewis County where I am from.  This year we decided to try something new, staying home and having our family come to us.  It was so nice, my wife cooked a huge meal and we ate and I didn’t have to drive anywhere, even better I only had to go to 1 Thanksgiving meal instead of the normal 4 to 5 rushed meals as my wife, kids and I rush to see everyone in our family’s (both divorced so a lot of places to go and people to see).  Anyway, I had my normal Oats for breakfast to attempt to avoid overdoing it for lunch.  I ate a good bit but didn’t stuff myself (another first) but man was it good.  Then we all sat around and did nothing, just talked and hung out…Talk about a perfect day.  Then I went and messed it up by putting in a killer hour on the trainer, but even that and the gallon of sweat that came with it couldn’t ruin this day. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Eastern KY and I’m going to ride Cave Run Tomorrow...

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OK, so first things first, I got on the trainer this evening and put in an hour at a pretty steady pace, felt like I had a good solid workout.  When I downloaded the data from my HRM/Computer it said that in 1 hr tonight I burned about 1200 cals, however last night doing the Spinerval in like 30ish minutes I burned 1600 cals.  I guess there really is benefit to doing a targeted workout.

Secondly, I bought the new Guns N Roses album today, first album I have bought in literally years.  After listening to it while on the trainer tonight I’ll rate it a 3 out of 5.  One of the great things about it is that it was put together over 15 or so years so there are a ton of different sounds and artists.  That timeline is also one of the downfalls of the album over the past 15 years a large number of sounds have topped the charts and it seems that Axl Rose must have picked one sound from each of those genres.  You can hear Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, Santana, etc.  I will say one thing though, the title track Chinese...

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I don’t know the man, but I really can’t stand him, the sight of him and the sound of his voice makes me want to puke.  Mainly because I know an hour or so of punishment is coming.  Today my kids have some friends coming over so no time for an actual MTB ride so I retired to the basement to jump on the trainer and do a Spinerval.  Wow, Yet another smack in the face about just how out of shape I am, I did a short 40 minute workout and went really hard the whole time.  It was a good one mixed it up with high cadence work and one-leg drills, etc.  I haven’t uploaded by HRM data yet but I guarantee I averaged better than 160ish bpm the entire thing (besides the warm up).  The one legged drills really got my quads BURNING, sitting here after a shower and a short rest and they are still kind of burning.  Oh well, weighed myself today and I’m down 2.6 for the week so far, if I can keep that up consistently I’ll have the weight off by 1st Quarter ‘09 leaving me to concentrate fully on stamina and speed from April through...

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Yeah sad I know, today I pulled out the Canzo and hit Cherokee and did about 1:20 ride around the park.  I noticed many technical features are gone but I still had a good time, I couldn’t really focus on the trail anyway because my lungs were burning horribly.  It was cold but I was dressed about right, so I wasn’t too cold (except on road sections) Other than the missing features the trails were in pretty good shape, solid and fast for the most part.  I parked at the base of Wilderness and started there, it didn’t take long to get my HR up starting up that little hill.  The rest of Wilderness was pretty uneventful, there were a couple new log crossings which was a nice touch.  They helped me remember why I went to the 29er as it rolls stuff so much smoother and easier than my old FS 26er. 

One of the low points of the ride was when I actually had to drop to granny to clean the hill coming out of Wilderness loop toward the golf course trail…it’s been 2 years since I ever used anything lower than my middle...

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In 2002 my brother spent a summer and fall in Alamosa, CO guiding elk hunts.  In early November I flew out to Albuquerque, NM where he picked me up at the airport dressed in full on Cowboy gear, after an initial laugh, we were off to the mountains.  In Alamosa we took horses (I know horses in a bike blog) to the Great Sand Dunes national monument and then up into the San Juan Mountains it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  After several days in Alamosa we headed north and the adventure continued, we took 285 North out of Alamosa and continued for a while through some beautiful terrain.  We decided to go to Aspen so we took a left onto route 82 past two of the most clear/still mountain lakes I have ever seen here’s a pic:

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