2nd place!

I raced the mountain bike race in Central Park again, this time riding in the novice category. I felt SO much better today. I had legs all the was through, and ended up lapping some people who lapped me the week before. I took second, which was very pleasing. Especially nice was Heather's presentation of my placing 2nd. She seemed proud that I was one her spin class participants, said I was "incredibly good looking," (blush) announced that I had ridden the metric century the day before and seemed psyched for me. Nice moment.

Many thanks to Jen for taking so many great pictures.

Relaxing metric century

Nothing like a metric century to get you ready for a race :-). Jason (man can he ride) and Justin from Plaine's met "Veggie Girl" Jen at Plaine's at 8:30 in the morning and we rode out to aurisville and back. Only two big hills, other than that perfectly flat Mohawk river road. Very nice and relaxing.

Not doing Johnnycake again this week

I took a quick hour long ride to gear up for the weekend. Down Relyea to route 155, up the big hill and tooling around on the hills from there.
I decided not to do Johnny Cake again. I need to ride more before I do more of those road rides.

Heather!

Back to spin class. This weather won't give up! Heather gave us a scare. She was in so much pain she pretty much fell off her bike. Dr. Rob and Wiley took her off to the hospital. The rest of the night was pretty mellow, as you can imagine. I hope there is word on her soon...

Mountain bike race in Schenectady

Mountain bike race at Central park in Schenectady, thanks to Heather. I rode the open category and had very liitle left after racing yesterday. I DFL'd. Next week I think I'll go novice instead. I've never been colder.

Johnnycake did not go as expected

I'll keep this brief. Johnny Cake did not go as expected. There are a lot of guys out there working a lot harder than I am at this. Joe says it takes a few years of training to get up to speed. I guess that's what I will look forward to. I am proud to have finished. I rode all but a couple of miles solo with strong headwinds. It was quite a workout.
I really need to do a lot of group rides. Riding in a pack was nothing like what I expected. It felt like more work rather than less.
Goals: Ride more! Who cares about racing? Well, I kind of do, but I will definitely keep it cool.

Getting ready for Johnny Cake road race

It's cold but I'm out. I need to do a tune up before the Johnny Cake road race so I rode from home to Emma Willard via the Mohawk Hudson bike path. 42 miles. I averaged 15.87 MPH which I think is really good considering I got lost twice, had to ride through Troy city streets and had one stretch of dirt bike path that I wasn't expecting. I'm ready to kick some butt at Johnny cake!

Not as strong as I thought I was

Damn this cold weather. Back to spin class. I thought I was feeling strong and then came to class. Man this is hard.

Good class

Good spin class tonight. I feel strong

Cold, but happy

It's gotten so COLD. No releif in sight! I lead a ride at the Pine Bush today which was a lot of fun. Tequila Doug, Lego Andy and Samantha showed up and we rode for about 3.5 hours. Doug showed us some new trail (well, new to me) out by the graveyard and I impressed everyone by riding over the "skinnies" out on what I call the "garbage pile" trail which is off of the blue trial. It was a great ride, including Lego Andy offering to look at my resume.

Not riding

I'm sad because everyone is biking today and I am home. Mountain biking at the Pine Bush, and a beutifual 55 degree day for riding road. Joe and many others have made sure to tell me what a perfect day it was. Carmel's birthday was yesterday so we are enjoying the day with Fran and Joey in town. We hiked around Thatcher for a bit so that was cool. Also, spring break is here so I'll be riding a lot.