So, yeah, guess I'm doing it.

I sat down and counted out the weeks until the Battle the Bear. It was six and a half weeks from mid-last week. I had been focusing a bit more on cardio fitness lately but yeah, I'm still slow on a mountain bike. Now I have been lifting weights regularly for 2 years but that doesn't help that much. Six and a half weeks, can I do anything in six and a half weeks? So I google. I found this: First Timer Cross Country Mountain Bike Training Plan.  A six week training program from LW Coaching who is actually a sponsor of my husband's team (Pedal Pushers). This is good! It sounds just like what I need, plus I get to support one of his sponsors which is pretty cool.  I talked it over with Jeremy (my husband's name is Jeremy by the way) and he thinks it's a good idea so I buy the program...

Wait, what?  I just bought a program.  I hadn't even officially decided to do the race yet.  I was going to go ride the course first, see if I could do it in an hour.  I hadn't had time (I'd been working and had a nasty chest cold).  But I bought a program.  Guess this is it.  I'm doing a mountain bike race.  I guess.

The program didn't officially start until Monday, so I thought maybe I could ride the course Sunday.  It snowed Saturday but not enough to make the trails muddy.  I get down there and go to make the right turn on the bridge across Turkey Creek and realize the bridge isn't really there.  It didn't survive the floods late last summer.  I think they are in the process of rebuilding it but it's a "no go" right now.  So I have to go around to the concrete bridge, adding a bit to the 10 miles course.  There's a few other areas still closed from the flood, but nothing that adds anymore distance.  My goal is 10 mph.  I had looked, my usual for the park is 7 mph.  That's a pretty big jump.  But I'm feeling strong, going as fast as I can, actually pedaling on flats and slight downhills (something I don't usually do.  No wonder I'm slow), trying to keep a fast cadence on the more gentle uphills.  I felt pretty good in spite of still having a cold, dead lifting the day before, and not having any food with me but some Sport Beans I found in the bottom of my bag (those were pretty yummy actually).  Oh and I've been dieting lately too.

So I ended up doing 11.5 miles in one hour and 23 minutes.  I thought that was pretty good, but still only 8.3 mph.  I guess that's what the training program is for.  Will it get me up to 10 mph and for 20 miles not just 11?  I don't know.  I'm sure resting and eating better the week before the actual race will help.  So yeah, even though I couldn't make my own standard, I'm still doing it I guess.  I'm going to race my mountain bike.  Still not really sure why.  I'm pretty darn slow...

This is my Strava map from Sunday.  Looks like the last satellite image taken was during the floods last summer.  The lake grew to like 3 times it's normal size.  See how much of the trail was underwater?  Pretty cool.