Chugs

Despite losing power at our house last night around 8pm, and not having it back on until 3am, thunder and lightning rolling through all night, poison ivy itches still making themselves felt a little, it was a rather sleepless night. An 8am planned mtb ride at the park was iffy due to the rain, but the trails have been super dry and hard, so unless it poured inches overnight it would be ridable. But I was late as I fell asleep after walking the dogs at 5am. I went over, with mtb and road bike (just in case trails were not ridable). But they were! Thank you! I'd been off the mtb for 10 days, so I was really wanting to enjoy a 3.5 hour ride around my local trails. I just cruised, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, careful on rocks - they were slippery from the overnight rain, and eventually ran into Ange and her coworker Sam. We rode together for a while, and saw a huge tree, a hundred feet tall, about 75 feet down trail, leaning at 45 degree angle, splintering, cracking loudly. We stopped and wondered how long until it fell. When it did, the top would surely cover a good portion of the trail. We decided to sprint past it... we made it. A stretch on the road to skip the newer stretch of trail that is a bit more technical with lots of rocks (because they would be slippery) and then on to the awesome downhill at Hesitation Point. I just love this trail. Its so lush right now, green everywhere, sometimes I feel like I'm in a fairy tale land. I parted ways with Ange and Sam to do another loop, but met up with them at another connector where they had stopped to swap saddles with Heather and Jess who were just starting and has snapped a rail on a saddle - always handy to hook up with friends on the trail. I did one more loop before heading home. I was covered from head to toe in mud, not because the trails were super muddy, but there were a smattering of puddles and they just splash the mud right up. I stopped in the local market for my favorite Chugs chocolate milk - if you haven't tried this you must! Perfect recovery drink after a good workout. An email from Heather confirmed the tree indeed went down between the time we sprinted under it and when they made it up there.

My friend Melissa was supposed to be out crewing for her friend who was running Western States 100. Fires cancelled the race, and turns out she has an injury that kept her home anyways. I have been remiss checking in with her this past month, I didn't know she was having problems. She is born to run. I'm looking forward to seeing her put up some great ultra's in the future!

I'm thinking about hiring a tri-coach for the next year or so, someone to help me reach some new goals.