One month till MOMAR September 1
During Friday’s glorious rest day I happened to glance at my daytimer: one month till the Cumberland MOMAR! Time to crank it up a notch for our final event of the season! Our 3 days riding Hornby, plus getting up adnormally early for work on Friday left me a little more tired than usual. I remember sighing and starting to get annoyed with myself that I haven’t put in as much paddling practice as I wanted, but too late to worry about that! The trade off is that my single track skills have improved by leaps and bounds this year, so I will settle (grudgingly) for being a competent beginner paddler only till after the race is over.
Saturday I spun to work on my mountain bike. It was a little odd riding with a pack filled with tupperware containers of food and a full change of clothes, but it was a perfect day and I enjoyed myself. From my house to work it was 50 minutes (a full 5 minutes faster than the first time I rode to work a few weeks ago), and I had a nice spin going probably 90 percent of the time. On my lunch break I rode back home and Kitt (who had just got off work) rode out to meet me half way. At the 20 minute mark we found each other and turned for home. Kitt led as I practiced drafting in a pace line, but I found myself out of the draft more often than in it (just not confident enough to sit 5 inches off someone’s back tire yet!). All in all, we got home in 40 minutes…. Wow, a full 10 minutes faster than I’ve ever done. Granted my legs were Jell-O but my sense of accomplishment overshadowed the pain! I showered, changed, and unfortunately had to go back to work till 3am.
Sunday morning my alarm had it’s work cut out for it trying to get my butt out of bed. 0820 and I wondered in my hazy brain why on earth I was getting up after 4 and a half hours of sleep. Then I remembered I had promised a co-worker to run with him in a poker run at the Running Room in Broadmead. Oh great! All in all I actually showed up on time, got my number and Shawn and I were off. The course was beautiful, from the store out on Lochside Trail to Mattick’s Farm and back. I had always wondered how far it was from my house to the Farm (great bakery) and now I know! Slow and low, that is the tempo! It was an LSD day for me so I had a great time chatting and trying to keep Shawn’s mind off the fact that he very bravely decided to “off the couch” this fun run. Not so long ago I was in his shoes (about 8 months ago to be exact!) and fervently depending on Rosheen to talk me around Elk Lake! We came in a little over an hour (it was so weird to feel like I was just getting warmed up and could have gone on for a LOT longer!) and a cookie, some new socks (that I bought) and cuppa Gatorade and I was out on the lawn in the sunshine waiting for door prizes. The first one drawn was a $25 gift card to Thrifty’s. My tummy gave a loud rumble so I remarked, (loudly to all those that had the unfortunate luck to hear my stomach) that if I won I would promptly walk the 100m over to Thrifty’s and eat my way thru the cheese and sushi sections. Lo and behold, I won it! There was quite a few giggles from the area where I was standing but what a great return on a $10 race fee!!
Today was another great rest day. Finished most of our errands left over from the wedding and I napped quite a bit in anticipation of working late tonight. I feel a bit like a T-Rex right now tho: everything that crosses my path I get my teeny arms on and shove into my mouth. And I mean EVERYTHING!! What better day to get back on track than the first of the month?