Climb every mountain, some of them twice

After a fun weekend where I ate entirely too much, yesterday I only ate a little too much. I got on the scale this morning and saw 320 looking back at me. Obviously, the two weeks away from serious training and watching what I ate wasn't good for my waistline. With a little less than a month until the Club Nationals, I have a good bit of work to do to be ready.

I started back to counting my points today for food intake. It's been tough the past couple of weeks to watch food intake because I'm hungry almost all the time. My body is still acting like I'm training full on but without the calorie burn to go with it. I thought the hunger might dissipate as I got further away from Timberman, but it hasn't. At least it hasn't returned to normal yet. Some of the eating has also been boredom eating, because I've been kind of taking it easy in general, because planning for ambitious future endevours doesn't take the amount of time and effort the actual endevours take.

Yesterday, after a visit to IKEA to help Rach add to our collection of bedding, we headed over to Wompatuck State Park to ride the trail for Landmine Classic XC race this weekend. I've been to the park before so finding where we needed to go wasn't tough, nor was actually getting there. This ride was to be my first real foray into trail riding, Mondays little ride along the Esplanade single track not withstanding.

The course I rode was the beginner course, a 6 mile loop through the southwest part of the park. Actually, I rode about 4 miles of the 6 mile course as I ended my ride when I rode back by where the car was parked, having covered the toughest part of the course in under an hours time. Not that an hour is fast, but I do have some excuses for why I was so slow:

• It was my first trail ride.
• The vehicle gate at the turnoff to the south field was closed, so first I had to bike down to the field.
• I went the wrong way at the starting point actually going down the trail that the race comes out of at the end.
• I stopped to check the map at least 5 times because I didn't know the layout very well.
• It was my first trail ride
• I took a couple wrong turns, including one down a descent that it's quite obvious why it isn't on the beginner course
• I'm fat, and therefore high climing isn't exactly my forte. 
• It was my first strenuous workout since Timberman.
• Did I mention it was my first trail ride?

So now that the excuses are out of the way; I had even more fun than I expected. I can't really say I had forgotten how much I love riding a bike, but I guess the feeling of enjoying a ride so much that I forget what a workout I'm getting is something I hadn't experienced in a couple weeks. Climbing the hills while dodging rocks and roots takes a lot of attention so it's a unique challenge for a mentally hyperactive guy like myself. The flats are fun and I feel like I'm going pretty quickly through those sections. 

The yellow section is the part I'll be racing this weekend

There's a guy I work with who tells me the trails should be better marked on race day so I should be able to spend less time and effort worrying about getting lost and be able to put more effort into going fast and not falling down. I got stopped by a couple of the bigger obstacles in the path and had to walk a little in spots, but I'm guessing across 4 miles, I only had to walk about 100 feet or so over obstacles I simply couldn't find the line through while riding. I did hit a climb I needed to walk because I was at the redline, but I'm guessing that will be less of an issue come Sunday as I'll have a couple more rides in by then.

While I'm putting some emphasis on the XC race this week, don't think I'll be neglecting my triathlon training. I'm running tonight and putting in some time on the bike with Rach following my run. I have just under a month to prepare for Club Nationals, and I'm going to make sure I put in the effort to get the results I want.