Northern Kingdom

I wanna go back!!!

One week ago today I was camping outside of East Burke, VT. I'd wake up that day, drink good coffee and eat oatmeal, and go ride brand new (to me) singletrack for 3 hours with Cody and Riley. We'd get back to camp and eat whole wheat pasta with our homemade pesto, about a pound of bacon, and good romano cheese. And drink beer.

(Today I woke up at 4, came to work, and am currently drinking bad coffee - there's something about the Turbo Shots that Dunkin' Donuts put in their coffee that make me feel all hella cracked out. I mean, more than normal espresso. 'S weird. I currently find myself grooving to a La Bouche song at 5:30 AM, inspite of my better judgement.)

Anyway, needless to say it was a totally fantastic vacation - complete with sitting around a fire drinking beer and making s'mores. I think we spent about 12 hours riding ripping trails while we were there. My legs still hurt. A couple friends from Gloucester came up to camp and ride with us. One of them compiled some pretty fun videos from her helmet cam. Mostly there's just some shots of my butt, but you can see Cody getting rad over a couple jumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuFW3AFk8-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6E0MkmkH4U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlIhj2ulyjE

On Thursday me and Cody spent almost 4 hours riding in a downpour. It actually was one of the funnest days, trail-wise. It was slippery with all the wet roots, but god those trails are fun.

New Christmas card photo???

After that picture was taken we went out and split a medium pepperoni pizza, an order of mozzerella sticks, and an order of french fries. Yeah. It was a lot of cheese. But it takes a lot of cheese to stay warm whilst camping in Northern Vermont in September. And with 3+ hours of hard riding each day I think Iate like, 10K calories a day and came back a pound or two down from when we'd left. Hey, it's race season, I gotta keep tabs on these things.

Anyway, the downside of taking a few days off work to go play is that I'm super busy and utterly vacation-hungover this week. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to heading BACK up to Burlington, VT this weekend for the Nor'Easter UCI cyclocross race. Two words for you: Euro Pros. Yeah, Crossresults has my ranked LAST on race predictor. Sad face. But I guess I can only do bettter than that, right???

Dude, Reno, what the hell? Why can't you get in the news for something not terrible? Seriously, the economy? Suicide rates? Mass involuntary aeronautical vehicular manslaughter? (Not that Gloucester is much better.) I tell this story a lot, but back in 2002 a dude crashed his plane out at the Air Races, and, well, died. I saw his picture in the paper and he was this guy who I'd waited on at The Diner out in Golden Valley (that's in Reno, for you non-Reno-ites). Anyway, he had been a jerk and had tipped me like, 51 cents, so I remembered his face. Then, well, you know the story. Life's weird, huh?

On a lighter note - did anyone watch the Pats game on Sunday? Did you see Wilfork's interception? Look it up on Youtube. It's priceless.

This digression brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts Turbo Shots.

2 months, listed.

So, it's been, what? Two months since I last blogged? I am sooo on top of my shit.

In the last two months I have done the following, in no particular order:

1. Run a 5K, and won my category.


2. Raced a MTB race, and came in DFL in the pro women.


3. Ordered a new cyclocross bike (thanks, Dad!). It should be here this week. In exchange I had to tell Cody that he could get a dirt bike. Okay, he probably would have done it without me being "ok" with it, but I gave him my blessing. And told him he has to motopace me. It'll be a dualsport - street legal, you know.


4. Ridden my XC bike on the DH trails at Highlands MTB park in New Hampshire (it was hella sick).


5. De-gooked a blocked composting toilet - it's actually much, much, much worse than it sounds.


6. Missed the Nevada City Classic. I didn't really do anything but sit around and feel sad about not being there with all my friends and family and racing buddies. It sucked.


7. Done lots and lots of MTBing, and learned to drop some little 2 footers, plus I've been rocking all the stuff around here that used to scare me enough to hike it.


8. Trained, actually. And my fitness is actually coming along surprisingly well.


9. Looked into plane tickets to Vegas in September for a little cyclocross race they have out there. Followed by a party that I rarely enjoy but always look forward to, for some reason.


10. Been hired as personal trainer to a number of new clients.


11. Watched a lot of hockey, for some reason (go Bruins!). <<<< Bandwagon-jumping.


12. Picked about 1000 ticks off of poor Riley.


13. Picked 0 ticks off of Big Kitty and Little Bit, as they still refuse to go outside. I think they're afraid of the chickens.


14. Almost broke my leg playing Capture the Flag. I had the flag (in this case a ski pole, for maximum unsafety) and I was running through a rutted field. My foot went in a rut and I landed with my shin on a big rock. Currently my left lower leg is like, twice as big as my right, and blue. Fan-tastic.


15. Put together a rousing Keg Hunt for a bunch of drunk people. Like a treasure hunt, but in this case the treasure was a keg of Bud. Uhh, right. That was the same day, but before Capture the Flag. To be clear, I was perfectly sober at the time of the leg-wrecking. In fact, I was perfectly sober all night long. Being a bike racer (even one who doen't race) is so exciting.


16. Been awoken at obscene hours of the morning by the goddamn Guinea Hen. Have you ever heard a Guinea Hen? Ours is flipping retarded, and makes horrible, horrible noises all the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMUQckEa_ME But they eat ticks. Lately I think they've been distracted because the girl Guinea is sitting on eggs and the male thinks that if he makes stupid noises all the time that we'll go after him and leave the girl in peace. We don't harrass the girl Guinea, we just sometimes go within like, 20 feet of her and he flips out. Anyway, they've been slacking on the tick eating lately. I'll be speaking to their supervisor, you can count on it.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that my longest bullet point was about Guinea Hens. I'm inclined to think that it's kind of awesome, actually.

This weekend we're headed back up to Highlands to watch the Claymore Slopestyle Contest - it's going to be sick. Hella, wicked, sick. Then we'll come back to Gloucester and watch some Greasy-Pole action. You know you want to click on the link . . .

I am not a Multisport Athlete

Last weekend I went to Ashland! Uh, Ashland, MA. Oregon would have been way radder. Although it was raining! . . . .

Anyway.

I went to race a duathlon. I'd been practicing at the shooting range, but then I remembered that it's only in a biathlon that you get to pack heat.

That's a joke, by the way.

So this race was pretty short - 2 mile trail run, 6.5 mile MTB, 2 mile trail run. Let's just get this out of the way and say that while I enjoy running very much, I'm not very fast. For the first two miles I did about 7:45 minute miles. For the second two miles, after the bike, I think I did 10 minute miles. It was a pretty cool event, and I won some Hammer Heed and got a pretty cool shirt. I remember thinking, during the second run, that, "oh, okay, now I've got all this running out of my system and I can just ride my bike until it starts snowing again."

Anyway, I've finally made a friend outside of Cody's circle of childhood friends and their girlfriends/wives. She's a runner and triathlete (I know, I know, and she's SUCH a triathlete, too, but whaddya gonna do?). Anyway, I'm helping her with her bike and she's helping me run faster. I think it'll help a lot in cyclocross, since I always look like a small retarded child during the runs struggle with the runs.

I know, that was extremely offensive to small retarded children who probably run much faster than me. (not politically correct)

Moving on. I don't really want to end my post with such an insensitive comment, but to be honest I don't really have anything to add.

Okay, I thought of something.

We took The Boat out night before last. Cody's brother has a little boat with a filthy smoking two stroke on it that I always feel really bad about participating in the running of (not gramatically correct). But being able to go out on the ocean is one of the few things that make not living in the mountains acceptable. We need a sailboat. I can't wait to go sailing this summer. Did I mention how warm it was yesterday? It was warm enough to get muggy. Ah, the humidity. Oh East Coast, you're so messed up.

Cape Cod

Oh bikes. I love bikes. Love love love.

Last weekend we went down to Cape Cod to find some snow-free trails. I'd never been, so it was a pretty cool little road trip. The first day we rode something called Trail of Tears, because the trial descriptor said it was the more technical trail in the area. It ended up being pretty fast and flowy, really fun, and not particularly technical. And there was hardly anyone out there, which seemed a little surprising on a Saturday. Weee! Singletrack and sunshine.

We spent the night in Hyannis at an Econolodge. There's a weird feel to these tourist-driven-economy places in the off season, but it was nice that it wasn't totally jam packed. I mean, I guess Gloucester is pretty tourism-heavy, but there's also a ton of commercial fishing, so it has a little more life in the winter.

Anyway, on Sunday we rode Otis, which is what they call the trails that border Otis Air Force Base. That solved the riddle of why there wasn't anyone on Trail of Tears the day before. The trails on Otis were soooooo much fun! More technical than ToT, by far, but super fast, too. Fun little rock drops off to the side of the trail, and steep, long-ish (by east coast standards) climbs and descents. And it was sunny and gorgeous and I was way overdressed in my long sleeved jersey and knickers. I didn't even BRING a short sleeved jersey with me, that's how long we've been stuck here in the cold. It didn't even occur to me. But I'm happy overheating a bit if it means the sun is shining. Rad. So rad.

This weekend we might to up to York, ME to visit some friends. I think I'll ride up there. It sounds pretty cool to say I rode in 3 states on one ride (MA, NH, ME), even if it's only 62 miles. But I have no endurance at this point so 62 miles will be a good grunt.