Unexpected But Swell

I took yesterday off the bike to rest up the legs after the 90 mile weekend. I hoped to get some riding in today and then start to focus on Operation Mid Pack. My attempt to get back into MY idea of race and ride shape. I would like to get more riding and racing in this spring and summer than I did last year.

The flaw with my plan was that I did not find out B-Man was off school today until last night. Crap. Not that I don't love spending time with him, but the "plan" would have to sort of be on hold as I went into Dad Mode to formulate a new plan.

So after FINALLY getting my blood thinner script faxed in to a pharmacy up here and re-filled (why did that need to be so hard?), and mailing out an XXC t-shirt to the Middle East, B-Man and I headed out for a hike at Deerfield Nature Park just down the highway from us. It is THEE closest place to ride trails near our house. Today of course we were just out on foot, taking in the crisp fall air, walking in the woods while I scouted out the trails.

Some of the trails we were on were really sandy, some were nice hard pack, some were perfect ribbons of single track and some were wide and quad-ish like (my term for about as wide as an ATV). Really not hills of any sort, but still some nice trails.

We did run into a couple getting ready to go out and ride. They said they ride there all the time and have a loop they do a few times to get in some time. In fact in the photo below you can see the woman coming down a section quadish ready to run B-Man down (I kid, she was going about 5 mph, LOL).


I'm anxious to get back to explore some trails on the bike, may even do that tomorrow if there's time. There isn't a ton of trail there, but there is enough to get a fix in for sure. Sort of how White Oak Park was back in PA. Not great but fun and funner because it was few minutes down the road. Being less than 10 minutes from the house is definitely a bonus. The one dude at the local shop mentioned a way to ride there on an abandoned dirt road and some low traffic roads from town, but the maps, etc., aren't showing it, so I guess I will have to go back and pump them for more info. I was in there yesterday to pick drop off/pick up my wheel, but the lady person working didn't seem to chatty or even into the fact that I needed a repair.

All in all we had a great hike. Hadn't planned the day, or hiking at all but our planned 30 minute walk turned into a nice 1 hour or so in the woods. Pretty cool. A bonus to the park (aside from its proximity to my crib) is that in the winter many of the trails are groomed XC ski trails. NICE!

Wifey ended up escaping work early today and met us at home. We then walked over to Jimmy John's for a sandwich. I am here nor there on the place (mostly not there about the prices!) but B-Man love their chips, so I promised him J.J's and it was nice to chill as a family.

There was probably plenty of time for me to get a ride in, but I just wasn't in the ride zone and would have felt rushed, so I headed over to the gym for a work out. I wanted to kick of some of that "training" but I still need to focus on what it is exactly I want from my weight workouts there. I have that sh*t written down somewhere, but my laziness sort of gets in the way. I did enough time on the Stair Master that upon leaving a REAL big older Native American dude gave me props for it. I just laughed and basically told him that I try to make up for my 14 year old girl weight routine with some hard cardio.

Yesterday was sort of a wash, and I had hoped today would be something, and it was. It was better than I anticipated. Happy Tuesday to me. How will Wednesday compare?

Later.