I am a slacker.....

Wow I didn't realize it had been so long since I had updated this. I gotta say that mostly it is due to what I feel isn't writing worthy material. Being a stay at home Dad while very full filling doesn't bring with it a bunch of excitement and drama.

Easter was fun, out in the yard at 5am hiding eggs so Ellie and Niko could tear around filling their baskets. Ellie did a very good job of sharing the fun with her brother, she is a good big sister. The day also brought a bit of an unexpected surprise as we had a black bear in the yard, and here I said I didn't have anything exciting going on, guess I was wrong. Made me wonder if he was checking me out while I was out there in the pitch black with my flashlight hiding eggs.

I got to finally go on a long ride in the Pisgah Forest. Even though it is basically my backyard I had been hesitant to really go exploring for fear of getting lost. This day however I met up with two others who knew the trails really well so there were no worries. We did almost 5 hours and had a good time. I was a bit gassed due to doing intervals the prior two days but when I got the call to see if I wanted to go I couldn't pass it up.

One day of recovery then a race on Sun. probably not optimal but oh well. Thankfully the course was pretty flat, it left me a bit under geared but I also didn't have to worry about digging up a bunch of hills. I managed to get with the leader about halfway through the first of two big laps and we railed the woods for the next 1.5 hours. Super fun but I really had no where to try and get away from him. So we stuck together until the finish and I knew my fate was pretty much sealed, one speed bike and a flat 100 meter finish straight was not a good thing. I jumped and was doing fine until about 15 pedal strokes, then I hit terminal velocity and that was it 2nd place by about a bike length.

That week pretty much hammered me and I spent the next week rolling around very slowly and aborting two workouts. I was generally feeling like a pud but after looking at my training log it started to make sense. Out of the previous 23 days I had done what I would consider a hard work out or a race on 12 of them. So I accepted my fate and just rode around easy in hopes of finding my legs.

Amazing what rest will do for you because the next week I had a couple of super good rides and felt on top of it again. Did some nice long hill repeats and enjoyed going out and mashing the throttle on the bicycle. It was looking like everything was lining up for a good race this past weekend. I had been planning on going to the race solo but when I mentioned it to Ellie on Sat. she let me know she would really miss me and wanted to go to the races as well. I told her if Mom was willing to make the trip we could all go. I got all our supplies ready later that day and had everything lined up. I got the bike ready for what looked to be a wet race and put on a bigger gear.

At 5am Sun. morning I got up to pouring rain but still proceeded as planned. Started loading stuff up and figured that we had a couple of hour drive so who knows what the conditions were like at the race course. A quick check on the computer however showed that it was also raining pretty hard there and they were calling for a steady rain all day and some possible "damaging" hail. I decided that it would be no fun to drag the Family along for that and went back to bed.

Of course for most of the day I felt guilty. Who knows for sure what it was like and most of the trails around here drain pretty well so it may not have even been that bad. To make matters worse I went out for a ride and felt really good. It wasn't until later that night when reports started coming in about the race that I felt a little better. They pretty much got slammed and the course was a mess, so now I didn't feel so bad.

So that pretty much gets us to today. There is a race this weekend but they changed the day from Sun to Sat.and Mellie is scheduled to work on Sat. so I may not make it. Kinda a bummer because it is one of the few places that I have already been to so I know what to expect. I may be able to line up a sitter at the race so it still might work out, we will see.