Let the suffering begin

Last week I mentioned that two keys to the success in my racing this summer would be to hit the hills MUCH harder and to get in some more endurance. Well, today I'll be doing both by hitting up the Wednesday night road ride in Camden. The ride itself is tough and typically includes lots of hills by itself but I'll be adding in riding there from Waldoboro (about 20 miles out) so with the ride to and fro and the group ride itself, I should be looking at around 70-90 miles (depending a lot on how much I want to kill myself near the end of the ride). Originally I had thought of riding all the way from Damariscotta but that would guarantee me 90 miles which seems like it might be a tad much for my first long ride of the year (plus, Marcy thinks I'd be stupid to try that the first time out. women). Eventually I'll work my way up to that and maybe, if things work out, I might even be able to go from the office at some point. Of course, after hatching the plan we got an e-mail from our realtor wanting to show the house tomorrow which means I'll have to bust ass home this afternoon to clean before heading out so none of the longer plans would have worked out anyway.

Over the weekend, while the whole fam was on a family camping trip to the Camden Hills State Park I met up with Mad Mike for an early Sunday morning ride at the snow bowl. I rode for just under two hours and got some serious climbing in. If it's climbing you need, the Snow Bowl has it. If I can keep this up (probably not) I'll be all set for my future climby races. Another cool thing about the ride is that I was able to hit up the newly constructed pump track near the end of the ride. I felt like a monkey fu*king a football on my 29'er on a track meant for bmx bikes but it was fun all the same and I got to practice my berm riding.