Where did October go?
I have been fairly lazy, at least with my lunchtime workouts and bike commuting. I probably averaged less than one ride to work a week. I ran at lunch once. I have been only mildly active on the weekends. I put on 5 lbs in the month. Bad news. Seriously bad news. I will have to do something to get in shape for speed skating season.
So what all did I do? I went fly fishing with the snow falling and the wind biting at my face. It was like steelhead fishing back in Wisconsin and Michigan, except I only caught one 8 inch rainbow instead of a 15 lbs silver bullet steelhead.
I only took my Trek Fuel EX 8 mountain bike out once. Katie and I went out to Marshall Mesa for an easy ride. Except we were battling 20 mile winds. Which was awesome… I will write more about that tomorrow.
I rode in three cyclocross races. Technically only one of them was in October, but that is acceptable as I collectively performed miserably at all of them. The first, at the Louisville Rec center as part of the Boulder Cyclocross series, I was actually doing fairly well (probably somewhere in the top 15-20) before I crashed on the downhill immediately following the sandpit. I went down hard on the turn and bent my derailleur hanger, of course I didn’t notice until my chain sucked behind my cassette and refused to be freed. Alas. The next race was the Valmont Bike Park Fest race where I continued my trend of falling. Not only did I fall, but I fell three times. And by falling I do not mean poor mounts, though I had plenty of those as well. I went down twice in the loose dirt after the run-up and then once again when some guy bumped me into the tape. I think I somehow managed to be the last person not to be lapped. Finally I competed in the Boulder Cup. I did not manage to avoid getting lapped; apparently I have a lot to learn about cyclocross, like that it helps to train… At least my Jamis Supernova is performing well.
In pre-winter news, we had three different ski houses fall through. If you know of anyone who needs two more (and a bulldog), let us know!
Oh, and it snowed 23 inches in two days; forty-eight later it was all but melted. We’ll see what November brings.