Crazy Times!

Since the Massanutten debacle life has failed to get any more sane.

Seems that the only time I get to do any real training is when the sun is nowhere to be seen and the bloody moon is out! One single solitary mtb ride - yep you've guessed it, a night ride. Initial plans were for a fairly major turn out, but as it transpired there was just Brian, Jon (from SSOFT) and DB. Still with Jon on a 29er SS it was good to have the SSers outnumber the gearies for a change. Changed things up a bit - Small Intestine, Ridge, Cascade then up to the old railway ties. At the junction hung a left down the shaley descent to the road. The results of the hours running in prep for the JFK 50 are becoming apparent, legs and lungs are fine but my bloody technical riding is (as Sean would describe it) "pants". As a result I'm up front pushing on the uphills then playing the "rusty wheel" on all the downhills.

Head across the swinging bridge and the pattern continues, fine up the climbs but hating every minute of the technical descents. Finish off up the water bar and backwards on Small Intestine for a nice 2 hour ride before we adjourned to the cars and a couple of beers - Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale - not as bad as it sounds!

Most of effort currently running though - trying to put in miles wherever they can be inched into my schedule - lunchtime runs and early mornings. Oh the joys of being an ultrarunner, Saturday morning and the 5am alarm call. On the road for 5:30am and 15 miles done by 7:30am. Home in time to take MLW a cup of tea in bed and make the children pancakes before the sun is even up properly! Sunday night it's another 10 miles in the dark and Tuesday morning another 5:30am start to get 10 miles in before work. Still only another 9 weeks to go! In all honesty I'm going to need every second of those 9 weeks if I am to get my fitness level to anywhere near where it needs to be, weekly mileage (even with early starts) if topping off in the 40s, and I need to get up to the 80+ mark pretty damn soon. Wish me luck!

Cheers

DogzBollux