Riding, Not Hiding

Considering my lack of decent blog material lately, one would think that I would jump at the chance to write up a race report, if material were available for one. The opportunity came on Sunday when I participated in the latest edition Bloomington Underground Cyclocross Series. This is not something I normally do for various reasons, not limited to the fact that past attempts have left me feeling like I was infringing on Adam's "man-time" by tagging along and forcing him to babysit the slow chick. Also, I'm usually well over the urge to even look at my cyclocross bike by the time the official season ends.

However, I have definitely had a more than sufficient break this winter and since I'm pursuing the lofty goal of simply getting my butt back in the saddle on a most-of-the-time basis, circumstances aligned favorably for my participation in Sunday's "race". The circumstances were basically that Adam and I had made plans to go to brunch after the race and I figured I should hedge my bets by riding before the gorging, rather than delude myself into thinking I would do it after. I also concluded that things would work out best if Adam and I were on the same schedule for the morning and he was actually in favor of my tagging along, so I decided to 'cross it up.

Basically, the whole course was a combination of standing water and slop that made pedaling extremely hard, even in my easiest gear. On the warm-up lap, I chose a bad line and got so bogged down that my bike came to a complete stop and I had to put my foot down in a puddle to keep from falling over. Since I was the only girl there and was really just trying to get in token saddle time, I only went as hard as the terrain dictated, but that was still hard enough to leave my butt sore the last couple of days.

So why did it take me two days to post rare winter blog material? Because I've actually been able to ride outside five days in a row and I've been too tired to blog in the evening. Woo-hoo! Of course, three of those days were 45-50 minute sneak-it-in-before-dark weekday rides, but that's still doing pretty good for February. Tomorrow is supposed to be thunderstorms, but things are looking good for short after work rides on Thursday and Friday.

I'm trying not to be so overly optimistic as to think that it will be all smooth sailing up to the beginning of DST, but things are looking good for the time being. I will not, however, make the mistake that I made last year by swearing off indoor riding too early.