"No matter what..."

Sometime last week I said to Jeff, "Let's go mountain biking this weekend, no matter what." That was before I bought the new trail runners and did 4.30 miles on a whim! In fact, when I set up the mtn bike 'date' with Jeff, if you had told me I'd be doing a run like that yesterday, I wouldn't have believed you and laughed hysterically at the very idea!

Apparently the run didn't excuse me from mountain biking! Since I wasn't really feeling that bad, just tired with achy shoulder blades and some muscle pain in the groin/hip area, I agreed to go as long as Jeff got the bikes ready and lifted them in and out of the truck. We went to Freetown State Forest to ride.

I haven't biked off road in ages, so I was quite pathetic, but it was so fun anyway. I had to walk over the large cobble washouts and picked my way on foot around a couple of very muddy, yellowy-green, frog filled puddles after very nearly going in one. My body felt fine as long as I was on the bike, but it was hard going when I walked.

We actually rode right through this sort of puddle easily, but it got quite boggy further on and I didn't feel inclined to get the camera out and be easy mosquito food.

Are we there yet?

Jeff got us to 'The Ledges', our goal, before turning and heading back to the start.

The loop we did came out to 10.42 miles.

4,000

I still don't have any waterproof gear because I don't think of myself as a rainy day biker, but I keep finding myself out pedaling in rain! I think I will end up buying some gortex before the spring rainy season.

My road bike is like new after the shop tuneup, but the weather has only been reasonable for 2 rides on it since. X6 is still in the shop. Thankfully I have the mtn bike to take out in the wet. It's been out two days this week, pretty much all on pavement. The short shoreline access paths are usually fun diversions from the pavement, but today they were more like small streams and I felt too soaked and cold and skipped them.

Today's ride got me to 4,012.28 miles for the year.