I am terribly ashamed to admit this, but until last night's beautifully, brrrr-y night ride at Heritage Park in Adrian, I hadn't ridden my bike since the race at Maybury back in August. Sad, I know! It was a combination of distractions: buying a house, moving and getting settled into said house, working my tail off, squeaking in some time for homework...I know, I know: there's no excuse for neglecting my bike. But I didn't miss it enough to carve out some quality time in my schedule.
Until last night.
I'm not quite sure what possessed us to drive two hours down to Adrian for a night ride. I think, mostly, it was the promise of hanging out with some folks we hadn't seen in while. Maybe I was just trying to get Mitch to use the awesome light I bought him for Christmas last year. Maybe, on some level, I knew I needed something social to get my behind in gear. Whatever the case, I'm so glad we went! It was freezing when we started...I was practically dressed for a night on the slopes, minus the ski pants and mittens. My thoughtful husband surprised me with an early Christmas gift: a pair of cold-weather biking gloves so I wouldn't either (a) freeze my little paws trying to wear my regular ones or (b) crash into a tree because braking and shifting is near impossible in mittens. But once we got on the trail, I warmed up. It seemed to be a pretty technical ride, made even harder by the fact that I don't even have a light for my bike: just Mitch's headlamp zip-tied to my helmet. I believe an actual bike light is now on my wish list!
Since we were in the area, we also decided to go cheer on Rick at a cyclocross race in Davisburg. I had never seen cyclocross, and it was crazy! Rick was really good at the obstacles (that's probably not the technical term), though he did catch his toe on one of the hurdles and do a faceplant. Ouch! He still finished second, and I believe he was seventh or eighth overall in the series.
Oh, speaking of race series, I don't think I updated on our final CPS results. I ended up second behind Nichole, who blew everyone away. After a hard-fought season rife with injury and illness, Mitch earned fourth in his class. Rick took third, and both of them will move up to expert next year. Two of my other teammates, Jake and Aaron, took sixth and fourth in their classes, respectively. Overall, the On 2 Wheels team had a great season!
And as we look ahead to the spring, Mitch and I are still undecided about our schedule. We both like CPS but are interested in trying some of the Tailwind races. Mitch wants to try an endurance race or two, and we're both considering Ore to Shore in August. But for now, I can say training season has officially hit the DeYoung house. In fact, Mitch is cranking out a CTS workout downstairs as I write. I'm scheduled for an appointment with the trainer on Tuesday. Oh joy!
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