R.I.P. Bad News

Jeff and I lost one of our kids today. Bad News lost his battle with feline diabetes. He'll be sorely missed. We hope he's enjoying some sort of super kitty afterlife, chasing and fetching paper balls and grumbling when he doesn't get his way. We'll miss you buddy!

Night ridin' at the Pig...

Amazingly it wasn't that cold (OK it was in the low 30's with the wind chill and that first downhill was c-c-c-c-cold, but I actually had to take my 180's off my ears as I was too hot) and we beat the rain. Debbie and I did not quite 8 miles of night time pines riding at conversational pace. I forgot my water bottle, but since we were just getting an hour in it wasn't a big deal. Sure it doesn't sound like a training ride...but we were training ourselves to ride in cold conditions and any night riding is good. Especially since we now have those nice ramped log obstacles at the Pig. Much like they'll have ramped log obstacles at Baker's Dozen. And you have to be able to hit them at night, when you're cold and tired, cuz you feel like a puss if you walk them...scary climbs and descents...now those you walk as soon as you start feeling the slight bit sketchy. But BD doesn't have but one of those.

Looks like the rain might keep me off the bike for the next day or two (keeping fingers crossed I can get a nice long, slow ride in on Saturday, but I've been walking daily as well as riding to start getting myself back up to snuff so I can start running again. Hopefully the rain will peter out this afternoon (it's saying the wet stuff should be done my mid-morning) so I can get a my first combo run/walk since the illness in this afternoon.

I'm Back

Finally, it seems I've come to the end of my "female" issues. I feel like me again. Though, now I'm a bit behind in my training schedule and goals for the 2006 endurance season. So I'm back on the bike this week, for at least 2 hours every day that Mother Nature is kind to me (no rain and at least 20 degrees "warm"). I started back slowly last week and the Stumpjumper is awesome. Love how light it is, and I didn't really have many sketchy moments getting used to the narrower handlebars and different set-up.

I'm glad to be back on the bike and back into training. Especially with Christmas coming in less than two weeks, I need some long rides and weight lifting to allow for some holiday gorging! See you on the trails!