and we progress

 perhaps, or we persist. 

Ice weasels was Saturday. Headed out, drove the 2 hrs there, walked the course in the rain, saw a few folks, def thin, light attendance, lots of no shows but still a good number racing. 

Mud tires were a good choice. Other than i had little to no confidence turning on them, but that is maybe more me than anything else. Straight line they had fabulous traction in all the slop and slick conditions, and they broke free predictably enough. But those downhill sweepers got in my head. I think I probably could have gone faster, should have at least, but didn't. Still worked pretty damn hard, sprinted at the end, didn't win any raffle prizes, drove home in the dark, for two hours. Called a few people after the book ended. 

Tried to take sunday as a rest day, it worked pretty well. HVR on monday was as good as I've ever seen it. And still only good, right in the middle. Today was average. Yesterday was normal, long, bike commute, making dinner, that stuff. This morning, same HRV (almost) as Sunday AM. But at least my HR isn't too bad, 45-47, not bad for an old guy who doesn't train properly or live like an athlete.

Gonna be a lot of driving between now and next monday, but hey we drove to Boston for three HOCR days in a row. Hartford is a little farther tho. Had thought maybe to do the drop off here at 1pm, drive to Hartford and try and get back here by 4pm. But it is mapping out at an 85 minute drive. 10 minutes to park, get to the boathouse and back to the car and drive back? And hope the return trip takes the same amount of time? Yeah no good. Whats the point of driving out there all the way to not see the course or anyone while there. Also, unless they let me into the special dropoff/pickup area there was no way I could even run from the parking lot to the boathouse in 10 minutes, much less run there, get packet and then back to the car in that time. It might be a good venue for racing but it is absolutely shit to get to and park at. Like horrible. 

So Thursday it is. 

And me sitting here in the car, trying to relax, trying to conserve energy, recover, making an attempt to manage my constant fatigue, making an attempt to minimize exersion. Still gonna be a bit stressful trying to get home, not terrible, but not gonna be fun, then there’s the cooking of dinner that has to happen. 

Such is life. GeWilli disrupting the gender roles since forever ago.

Ice Weasels. The bike was good, putting the 22t cog on there and the old chain was a smart move. TIres also. It would have been miserable and impossible with the 19t and the 38 slicks. 

Most people with disc brakes blew through them, down to the metal backing plate. Because hydros, esp SRAM have almost no clearance and the mud was so wet and sandy it more or less just ground both down over the race. My mechanical TRPs were fucking perfect. The dual sided piston movement means that they pull back, quite a bit. So the only wear was when they were actually being used. And I knew what was in store so I looked at the pads before the race, by eye I couldn’t tell the before and after difference. The bike was coated in mud. Cleaned it off, overhauled the pedals (took the pedal body off the spindle, packed it full of finishline grease, put it back together), cleaned and re-greased the non-driveside BB bearing and just cleaned everything, brush, compresed air and pledge. Got the Fast wheels with the 19t back on the bike and it is ready to go. 

I’ll throw up the photos soon, i’m offline right now. 

Been trying to just be, a bit more. Kind of working.

Words just not flowing at the moment. Need to pause and? Maybe come back to it before too long.

--

was a long wait, wound up just listening to some more Reacher. 

But somehow I got home completely wiped out. Driving? or that specific driving. or the waiting. Something wore me out.

heddwch
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