Countdown to Smithville!

Less than 3 days until my first Adventure Race and I'm feeling much more optimistic than my last post. Last Friday, I took off work to travel back to WI for a concert and to see family. My plane didn't leave until 5, so I took the morning as an opportunity to get a little more mountain biking in before the race.

I drove up to Smithville and I biked all of the trails rated Easy and More Difficult. I left the Very Difficult trails for another season. It was about 13 miles total and I didn't fall over once! (I also walked through the creek crossings and the rockiest of sections. Better to be slow than sore.) I then ran 3 miles and met John for lunch. It was the perfect morning and I only saw one person on the trails. I did see two people having sex in their car at the trailhead. Apparently I wasn't the only person having a good day!

Tonight I'm going to go through the gear list and pack my day pack. It is a 3 hour time penalty if you don't have any of the required gear. They have posted a little more information on the website and they said the check points will all be plotted on the maps for us. Which is good, but I'm also a little disappointed. I wanted to try that out, too. But if all we have to do is find the pre-plotted point on the map, then we should have no problems getting our points. I'm not saying we'll be fast, but I thought I would be more likely to incorrectly plot a point than not be able to find a point.

I'm excited. Smithville is fast becoming my favorite set of trails to bike/run in the area. I just wish it was closer.

More Than I Can Chew

I'm going to admit it right now, with this Adventure Race, I bit off more than I can chew. I have (rather unsuccessfully) been trying to acquire some mountain biking skill before the Nov. 6 race. While I thought it was something I could do with a little practice, I realize now I am in way over my head.

I haven't quite figured out if I'm going too fast or going too slow or if I'm just too stubborn and trying to ride through large, jagged rocks that I should not be riding through. I fall. I fall a lot. In fact, on Saturday, if I fell once, I fell at least two dozen times. I managed to re-open the cuts on my right leg and I also managed to fall squarely on the end of my handle bar. That one left a perfectly round mark and bruise on my chest. It didn't knock the wind out of me, but it was close. Ironically enough, it hit me in the same place that I was hit one time by a golf ball. But that's another story.

I was doing well, actually. I had gone out by myself last week and then MO and I went out on Saturday. We were having a blast and I was doing well until the Dreaded Red Trail. It is a rocky and twisty new section of trail and that trail clearly had a bone to pick to me. I fell once, twice. Then I got frustrated. The more frustrated I got, the more I fell and the more I fell, the more frustrated I became. I was on the verge of tears (and I'm not a cryer) so about 1/2 mile into the trail (yep, that's all it took - 1/2 mile) I told MO I was going back. I was not going to cry. I was not going to cry. There's no crying in mountain biking. I didn't cry.

Almost back to the trail head, and on a much easier trail, I fell for the last time. That was when I landed on my chest. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But I was not going to cry. Instead, I was doubled over in the middle of the trail, gasping and wheezing and cursing at that stupid rock. I gave up and walked a good portion of the trail back in. Not my best moment, but I was scared shitless to go over another rocky section and I could walk faster anyway. I hurt, I was bleeding, and covered in bruises.

So yeah, more than I can chew. Every time I rolled over Saturday night, I groaned in pain. At least my chest doesn't hurt as much. John told me if I wanted to start doing 2-a-days, he would beat me with a stick before bed. The good news is that we also practiced orienteering and that part, I loved. I can rock a topo map and hold a wicked bearing. So I will be holding up my end of the bargain. I just hope MO brings enough bandages.

I'd Like to Introduce

Adventure racing team Old Dog/New Trick!

Team Member: Old Dog
Name: MO
Age: Old as dirt
Occupation: Doctor (to stitch up SK when she crashes)
Sign: Virgo
Interests: Dressing up as prima ballerinas
Turn ons: Women

Team Member: New Trick
Name: SK
Age: Younger than dirt, wasn't born yesterday
Occupation: Engineer (to keep MO from getting completely lost)
Sign: Aquarius
Interests: Beer and bicycles
Turn ons: Bike shorts
We signed up and made it official. Someone should start a pool for how many checkpoints we get before we're totally stinkin' lost. I'm excited - this is something totally new for me. I was out on a mountain bike for the first time today and luckily only lost a little blood. Talk about adrenaline rush! I'm hoping to get at least 3 bikes in a week between now and then. As for the orienteering, well, hopefully I remember something about topo maps that I learned in school.

Should I??

I've always wanted to...

I have a good cardio base...

And a potential victim, I mean teammate...

Damn you Bonk Hard Racing and your very tempting Smithville 8-Hour Adventure Race!

Should I? Or should I wait until I have more than 30 days to prepare??

Enough with the Rest!

Ah yes, the week (or two) after a race I like to kick back and take time away from training. Don't worry, it's a fake cigarette and empty martini glass at a charity function. But gin and tonic was involved in the photo shoot.

Enough already. I took one week to rest and then I got sick, so I am ready to get back to training! My only problem is that I don't know what to do next. I have a 5k with Girls on the Run in May and of course there is the Super Secret Naked Night Run (or Operation Jaybird, if you're in the know). But those are little events that don't require training.

I'd like to get up to a 50k trail race by the end of the year and I want to do another 1/2 Ironman this fall, but it's too early to train for that. There are tons of trail races, road races, and shorter triathlons in between now and then, but nothing at the moment has me excited.

Except...

OK, so when MO first sent this to me, I thought "No way in hell." But then I looked some more and started thinking about it. And curiosity set in. An adventure race is on my Bucket List, I had just been planning on something a little, well, easier. I don't even know if he is serious about it or just sent it on for shock value.

So check this out and tell me how crazy I really am. It is, after all, just another triathlon. Biking? Check. Running? Check. Canoeing? Believe it or not, I've raced a canoe before, check. But more importantly, it's an unknown. And that makes me excited. There would be the minor detail of getting a canoe for practicing and racing. There would be bugs. Huge, relentless, blood-thirsty bugs the entire way.

One of my favorite quotes is Prefontaine: "Runners often straddle the line between crazy and insane." If I do this, I think it will launch me clear over the line and straight into the Looney Bin. Just one more thing I can check off my list!