Return of the Friday Morning Mistress

After a quick check of the weather forecast (rain Friday afternoon) on Thursday night I knew a rendezvous for Friday morning was in order with the 'mistress'. We have spent quite a bit of time together since January 1, but there is always something special about our time together in the early AM at the end of a week/start of a weekend. If I get a solid ride Friday morning then it alleviates some of the pressure to ride on Saturday. Saturday's of late has included a big chunk of family activities (which is great) and leaves a tight schedule to try to get in anything of quantity and this weekend was no different so back to Friday morning.

With temps brisk in the lower 40's I headed out later than usual (7am) and opted for the 29'er SS on backroads down and around Morrisville and Stockton Lake. This weekend I signed up for the 6hr Spa City mtb event and needed to spend time churning on the Rig. By ride's end (3:15hrs later) it was in the middle 50's and felt incredible outside. I chose a route with tons of climbing (nothing super long like Branson, but short and sharp - 10 to 20% is the norm).

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Jake came down with a nasty head/chest cold that is beating the crud out of him. That kid is having it rough regarding respiratory issues.

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Friday evening we had a late 8:50pm game at The Courts and I stopped off at A&B Cycles before the game to pick up some 'transformation' parts. Skip, Jim, and Cale were there hooking of a bike to a blender in preparation for A&B's big party on Saturday night. Pretty funny watching them go at it and from what I understand 1:30mins at 300 watts creates the optimum margarita. On to the game where the kids took a tough loss (now 15-13 on the season). Rained the entire evening. We ended up getting to bed way to late but that was ok as the cold temps and rain continued on Saturday morning so everyone slept in late. After a huge breakfast that Deb whipped up I spent most of the morning in my shop working on nickle and dime projects that I had put off for too long: change out cleats on shoes, lubed a ton of stuff, cleaned and organized shelves, but most of all fiddled with the Rig and got is set up for gear'ed action (1x9). It is amazing how simple and quick (less than 5 minutes) it can swap from SS to 1x9 and that's exactly why I bought it in the first place. I picked up a Stan's ZTR with a tubeless Specialized Capt tire a month back to having the extra increases the ease.

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Made my way to SBU's gym in the afternoon for a killer strength session and intended to ride an hour on the rollers when I got home, but got busy with some other stuff when I walked in and skipped riding for the day (see, it works out great when Friday rides take place).

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The evening had us parked in front of the tube for the Duke vs UNC game. Ian was happy his boys put it to my Dukies, but that makes the season a 1-1 draw and hopefully they will meet at the ACC tourney for the DECIDER.

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Finished up the night with SNL and really liked their 'Winning' bit of C Sheen; I like the group they have now (Haider and Sudeikis are great).

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Sunday morning I hopped on the rollers early AM and knocked out a couple more episodes of season 5's 24. Ended up with 2hrs which included a nice mix of intervals; my truly first ones of '11. Legs felt pretty heavy and thick from the day's prior session.

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Sunday school and church with some Mr. Wings afterwards made for a great morning/lunch time.

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Knowing some extra mileage with next week's 6hr race coming up I met Dale at 2pm for some more spinning on the backroads (dirt and gravel). It was the maiden voyage of the 'geared' Rig while Dale was riding his 'cross bike. It was all I could do to keep up with him on the flats and climbing and after 3hrs I was cooked! We hit the same loop as Friday morning which ended up being 41miles with close to 3k of climbing; like I said earlier, nothing long, but tons of short steep stuff.

Ian and I hit the gym for a quick shoot around before coming back home for a restful evening. Both he and I started feeling a little twinge in our throats along with a sniffle in the nose and dreaded the morning.

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Monday woke up to Ian's 10 year birthday and both of us feeling like crap. I took him to school, but about an hour later Deb grabbed him and he's been hanging out in my office all morning. We are heading home at lunch for some heavy snoozing and recovery and I don't figure to return the rest of the day. ***Ian sporting his new CP3 (Chris Paul) jersey in my office this morning***

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So as I mentioned the Spa City (Hot Springs, AR) 6hr is this weekend and I am heading down with some SGF guys (Peter Krause and Mark Gullet). I have the grand plan to go pretty hard for the first two hours (to simulate a shorter mtb race) then cruise the rest and hopefully get in 5 laps (50 miles). I don't have the legs or mileage to try to 'compete' so it's a full on training day for fun. Oh, by the way it will be the first time for me on single track in '11, which is not good for me as I prescribe to the 'bull in a china shop' riding style instead of flow.

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Got home yesterday and found our MWI Mad Alchemy in the mail; our own mix made up by the embro guru's. Looking forward to giving it a slathering and reporting back.