Mountain Bike Odyssey

Yesterday I was torn between driving up to Vulcan to see Keith compete in his first ever triathlon, or to go mountain biking with Char and her hubby. As I wrote Susi in an email, I decided to "be selfish" and go mountain biking instead -- Sorry Keith!! :P

Of course, as it turned out, the race was canceled so I didn't feel so bad at missing the opportunity to meet Keith. Besides, I'm going to go up to Calgary this summer (whenever the hell it stops raining!!) and bike the Road to Nepal with you guys. :) :)

Saturday is my day off training, but I couldn't resist christening my new mountain bike. It was pouring down rain as I left the house, but it lessened a teensy bit by the time we got to Fernie. Char's hubby had looked at Google Earth to find old logging roads cutting through mountains to determine our route. We started biking up and up and up and up. Then we started climbing and climbing and climbing and climbing. My legs were toast from the hill repeats on Tuesday and the Highwood Pass on Thursday -- but I was having the time of my life!!

I had a hell of a time trying to clip in and out of my pedals though -- I could get my left foot in OK, but my right one caused me no end of grief. We were biking up stuff I have never biked before -- stuff I would hike! So, every stop to get water (I don't have a camelbak yet) was a nightmare of trying to unclip and then trying to clip back in.

The trail was really steep and it was so freaking hard to force my right foot into the stupid pedal! My quads were killing me from trying to force my foot into the pedal -- I finally just gave up and left my right foot unclipped. I'm taking Crash into Gord's tomorrow to get that clip adjusted!!

We biked way up and just past the tree line when Charmaine started to get really cold. About 5 minutes later the cold hit me too -- the steady rain had turned into steady snow and we were both drenched. Stuart actually said to Charmaine that he was getting cold too -- and this is from the guy who has summited 4 of the world's 8000 meter peaks -- Char told me afterwards that he NEVER gets cold. Hahahahaha!!

At this point we turned around and blasted down the mountain. Note to self -- always wear sunglasses when mountain biking. There was so much mud that splattered all over my face and clothes and eyes -- this morning I still had little grains of dirt coming out of my eyes!!

I'll tell you, that is one way to get introduced to riding downhill fast -- get freezing cold and then you don't care what the heck is on the path you just let 'er rip!!! :) :)

We got changed at the car and then drove back to Sparwood where I had a bath at Char's!! They are such awesome friends, I am just bursting with warm fuzziness!! Stuart even washed my bike for me as I soaked in the tub!!! I couldn't believe it!!

Mind you,I had been plying them with Kelsey's protein bars (which they LOVE, by the way!!). I had to give them a copy of the recipe too. :) :)

We were out there for 5 1/2 hours!! My legs are stronger than they have ever been, and although I was POOPED I felt GREAT!! :) :)

Today, I only ran 60 minutes ez -- I was actually surprised I could run at all!! LOL!!!!