Every spring (since I've been back on a bike), I make a mental goal to go out and ride a couple of new mountain bike trails, areas I have not been to before. It's been pretty easy these first couple of years, seeing as everything is pretty much new to me. Other than Hartmann Creek State Park, where we've camped on a couple of occasions, everything I've ridden has been pretty local. Camrock is the closest and my most frequent destination. The Southern Kettles is the likely destination if I'm not going out to Camrock.

That is about it for my regular mountain bike haunts. Nice trails, but a list that needs to be greatly expanded. Saturday I did just that. Stopping at the Northern Kettles outside of Greenbush on the way to pick up the missing (not missed) children.

I grew up in the area and cross country skied at the Northern Kettles frequently during high school. I even biked there once in the mid/late 90's when all you could ride were the ski trails. Quite different now, and even more punishing than I remember. Nine miles of singletrack fun. Almost always up or down, and either smooth and flowing or rocky as hell. Killer climbs, rocky descents, but otherwise not terribly technical. Came out of the woods dripping with sweat, heart ready to explode. The last climb was brutal.

Bel at the Northern Kettles

I have not put much time in on the mountain bike this year and it's ridiculously obvious. Not necessarily by my riding ability, but in my confidence. I have none, I'm sure in large part due to my fall this spring. After the nine mile jaunt, the only real sore part of me were my hands. Must have had a pretty good white knuckle death grip on the bars for much of the ride.

Fortunately, the only way I know to gain confidence on the bike is to ride it.  And I intend to do more of it the remainder of the year.

W/O Child

We're fortunate to have two wonderful, healthy children. We're even more fortunate to have family willing and able to take them off of our hands for a week. This past week has been one of the most peaceful in years, and even though I'm not really training for anything at the moment, I am watching my wife peak out her own Ironman training, and I've come to realize something I've never really thought about before.
Training for endurance events is infinitely easier in the absence of young children. So much so, that I think some sort of race credit should be given to those who train while raising children. And I have a couple ideas on that, but first, let's discuss training.

This past week, I've been able to do basically whatever I want, whenever I want to do it. As mentioned, I'm not in full on training mode right now, but I still got on my bike four times since Monday, and I didn't once have to think about the ramifications of going out riding. It must be really nice, as a dependant free IM-wanna be, to be able to schedule your workouts at will. I can't even imagine. No soccer schedules, no little league, no having to feed them, watch them, bath them, get them to sleep. Nothing, just eat, sleep, work, train.

But I don't think that's even the most important part. Getting in the training, even with children and a little time management, is relatively easy. It's the recovery. With kids, coming home, showering, and promptly taking a nap is generally not an option. There are no naps, it just doesn't happen. Often. Without the kids this week, I've been free to sleep almost at will, or at least relax and put my feet up. Must be nice.

Which brings us to racing. How about giving those of us with pre-teen children a break? At the very least, our own age groups. How hard would that be? No dice? How about a time discount, 10% for the first kid, 5% for the second, 3% for the third? Seems fair to me. and again, easy enough to implement. I'd still be slow, but at least I'd have a chance.

Barring the miracle of anybody actually implementing one of my wonderful ideas, anyone want a couple of kids for about 30 weeks next year leading up to IMMT?

Anyone?

No. I guess it's for the best. I'm counting on Patrick to teach me how to swim anyway.

With Child

Nobody is pregnant, don’t be stupid.

Biking with child, or children, is the real matter at hand.  Last night a strange set of circumstances presented itself where I had the opportunity to ride home from work with Patrick, our son, who recently turned 10.  

In 2009 while training for Ironman I did probably 98% of my midweek riding to and from work.  The shortest route is about 16 miles, but it can easily be stretched to 20 or 30+ depending on route.  It worked out well for training, and I’ve been doing it quite a bit this summer as well.

Last night was either ride it again solo on Wilson, or change it up, take the opportunity at hand, and ride Blue, my single speed mountain bike, with Patrick.

And ride we did, and ride, and ride, and ride.  I’ve been riding with P for 3-4 years now, and over that period of time I’ve learned a couple of things.  Things I had much time to reflect on while riding last night.

Expectations

Have none.  I had no expectation that Patrick would make it the entire way last night, and had a sag wagon on call just in case.  I don’t go out riding with him (anymore) expecting to cover a certain distance, or a certain time, or at a certain pace.  This lesson didn’t come easy, and was often painful and frustrating.  Take whatever time you can get and just relax and enjoy it.

Water

If you’ve ever watched any of those wilderness survival shows or read anything at all regarding the matter, they’ll often tell you, when faced with having to spend the night in the wilderness, to stockpile as much firewood as you think you’ll need to get through the entire night, then double it.  This is how I feel about water, except you should maybe triple or quadruple what you think you’ll need.

I can easily go for an hour outing without drinking, my son can’t make it to the end of the driveway most days without complaining of thirst.  On our route home last night P probably drank close to 40 oz, and would have drank more if I would have had it.

Snacks

Like water, I bring a lot of it.  Most of it stuff I typically wouldn’t let him eat on a regular basis.  But I never let him know I have food, or what I have, or how much I have.  But if we stop for water, I’ll generally get something out.  Nothing seems to pick up the mood of  kid like an unexpected sugar bomb.

That’s about it, fairly simple really.  We did make it home last night without the need for the sag wagon.  Two hours and almost 19 miles later.  There were some low points where I could tell he was tired, but he pushed through and we made it with out any real drama.

P, about half way home, pounding his way up the Marsh Road "hill".

I can get on my Wilson and hammer my way home almost anytime.  This was relaxing and fun.  Probably more of what I need right now.

Hills

I think I found the hilliest, somewhat direct route to work this morning.  20 miles of up, down, repeat, with not a whole lot of flat.  Hopefully by the end of summer I won't be feeling like they bitch slapped me repeatedly and left me for dead.  Cause that's kind of how I feel now. 

But this image is constantly in the back of my mind.

And it's a bit worrisome.  12% is a big hill.  I'm not aware of many hills in Dane County that are that steep.  The two I am aware of aren't that long, but still scare the hell out of me when thought of in the middle of an IM course.  One I've only ridden down, the second is on the HHH course, which I described at the time like so:

Picture putting it in the granny gear, turning the pedals over at 40-50 rpm, while simultaneously seeming to try and push your feet through the bottom of your shoes and rip your handlebars from the bike. At times for miles at a crack. Expletives were flowing freely from all fronts.

So hills are on the menu, followed by hills, and supplemented by more hills.  I've changed the gearing on Wilson back to the 11-23 which it came with.  I intend to train with this cassette and the standard cranks and then switch the cranks/cassette (probably around taper time) to compact cranks and a 12-27 cassette.

Kill the legs in training, make the IMMT ride as easy as physically possible.  Get off the bike ready to run.  That's the plan.