You done messed up A A ron....

So once again it is my weekly update. 

My last ride was at Fort Custer a week ago. Then I found excuses for the rest of the week. Little did I know that my fake excuses would then lead to a legitimate excuse. On Wednesday I had a very stressful day with one of my teenagers. No details, but lets just say that this child should be thankful murder is illegal. Add that on top of my already high stress level and will little surprise...I believe my ulcer is back.

So what does that mean exactly? It means nothing good. Essentially I took a half day on Friday and went home...climbed directly in bed...and slept until the evening. I was up for 2 hours and slept until noon the next day. So sleep, along with some rather uncomfortable intestinal distress. That leads to not being able to ride...but only since Thursday. But, like I said....excuses precluded the ulcer symptoms.

So, I am hoping that by Wednesday or Thursday I will be ok physically and will be able to ride again. That is ok considering the way the weather looks the next few days. In the mean time I have been thinking about 2018 and what my plans will be. While I don't think LJ100 will be realistic I do plan on racing again. 

Not that 2017 is even over yet, as there are still plenty of events left that people will be racing. These events will be anywhere from mountain bike races to cross races to winter fat bike races. While I do plan on riding in the winter I won't be ready for any semblance of racing this winter.  So, my plan for 2018 is....

The Lowell 50

I have been signed up for this race twice and never done it. One time I was stupid sick and the other I was simply a pussy and didn't want to ride in the rain. Since there are 2 episodes of this race every year, I would really like to attempt it.

Barry Roubaix

Again. I have done Barry and I love the course, love the atmosphere, and the event as a whole. It has been a few years since I have been able to race due to my oldest daughter and her awesome dancing competitions on that same weekend. She is graduated now. There might be a chance she will be dancing again, but with BR being early this year....I should be good.

That is a good place to start. I know I have 32 weeks to get ready. I have 32 weeks, but it starts now. Put the list of excuses down along with the unhealthy food. I stopped drinking pop, so that is a start. Been nearly a week now. Now I need to get my nutrition under control. Those 30ish weeks will be gone before we know it.

Weekly update

The weeks keep ticking by, and the days are getting shorter. Seems like less than a week ago it was 9:30, now it is dark closer to 9. Pretty soon I will be driving to work in the dark (which I already do) and driving home in the dark. ugh.

Not a real good week for riding. I did a road ride Tuesday night, and that was about it. I was in the gym on Monday and then headed there Friday since nobody was home. I did ride on Saturday too, so let me recap the 2 rides I did.

Road ride.

The funny thing about the road bike is how twitchy it is...until I get used to it. Once I get settled in I really do like the bike. It rides smooth. I do a short sub 18 mile loop around my town here. It is low traffic and the road surfaces are decent, especially for Michigan. My legs felt like concrete though. I had zero power at all. My sustained efforts were slow, and hard. (thats what she said ;) 

Anyway, my ride was pretty good all things considered. The interesting thing about this ride? My time was exactly 1 second different than the last time I rode this route. 1 second over 18 miles. I have never had 2 times that close in all of the journeys over this route. As awful as my legs felt, I figured it would be a slow ride, but it was "consistent". 

Didn't do anything but order tires the other days. Those will be here next week, more to come on those. Saturday I loaded up Albert and headed to Fort Custer. Because I was at the gym the night before I wasn't sure how my legs would respond. The first mile wasn't bad. lol. I rode into Custer and took a shortcut to the green loop. I finished up the Green loop and headed to the Red loop. I was actually getting comfortable on Albert until I remembered the brakes are weak and nearly blew a corner. After that caught my attention I was able to settle in and get comfortable again. Not a fast ride, but the bike sticks to the ground because the tires are so freaking big. I don't care for the tread on my current tires, but those will be getting replaced in the winter anyway. 

So that is about it....other than I need to buckle down and eat healthier. 

Updating again

Every time I remember to post it has been weeks since my last post. For those that read, my apologies. Life has been hectic still and I am doing my best to survive day to day.  Alas, onto the last few weeks.

I have been getting out. Rode Merrell a few weeks ago. Made it about 4 miles before I chirped a rock and gashed a sidewall. So, I took a nice hike in the woods before finding my way out. 

Having to wait a while to get a new tire I remembered that I actually have a fat bike. So I loaded that up and rode to the Allegan trail here in town. I wanted to see what progress had been made...and it wasn't much. I just tooled around checking things out before heading home. The main takeaway...the fatty is a way different bike than the DUFF.

Wanting to really test out the fatty (Albert) I headed to the Maple Hill trail at Markin Glen in Kalamazoo. This is a new trail that hasn't even had it grand opening yet. This will be an interesting trail for sure when it is done. It was fairly short yet, but there was a screaming fast downhill line that has table tops. Stupid fast. being on a 40 pound bike I wasn't about to fly...not that I like to fly anyway. I was just riding and checking out the terrain. Hilly. The fist section is uphill to an opening where you can choose the "downhill only" line or the other section of trail. I missed the other section the first time thru. I just went to the downhill run and really enjoyed it. After that run there is a section of trail that is fairly flat and winds around the south side of the park. This is where the trail construction is continuing so you take the road back to the lot and go uphill again. This time I took the trail towards the right. it wraps around and ends up back at the trailhead. Overall, a fun trail and a nice change of pace when compared to the other trails in the area.

I headed to Hammond Hill the next week with Albert (fatbike) to see how the new trail system is doing. It is interesting for sure. This is another new trail system that is about 6 miles long. The kicker here....it is bi-directional all the time...meaning you can find someone head-on....while bombing down a hill....or they could be...so it was farily nerve racking riding here. Other than that, it is a pretty cool trail system. There are connectors all over and you can just sorta keep riding and turning left or right and generally end up back at the car. 

Once I got the tire fixed on the Anthem (D.U.F.F.) I had to go try out Merrell again. This time I rode with Nate and we did 2 full laps and got all the spurs. The major thing I noticed....after riding Albert for a few rides I was super twitchy on the D.U.F.F., super twitchy. It took me at least a mile before I was getting comfortable again. Because Merrell is such a blast (in the yellow direction) it didn't feel like we rode as far as we did. Solid ride, slow....but solid.

Today I headed to Fort Custer. I turned in a solid lap on the red loop. The dirt was "hero". the trail was in amazing shape all around and I was just pushing everywhere I could. I felt "good" for the first time in a long time. I have been feeling ok, but not good. Today was good. I headed out on the green loop to complete my ride and it was cut short by another torn sidewall. This tire had about 25 miles on it. I didnt hear a big twinge or anything, but I must have hit a rock just right to cut the wall.  Oh well, just need to get it replaced again...for the second time in less than a month. Going to look into the snake skin version next time.