Schmarathon

After last week's disastrous race at the HMC I was faced with a stark truth : running and riding don't mix. At least not for this mid thirties desk jockey. So.... I decided to can the marathon and focus on the riding. With less than a week to go before Downieville I didn't want to overcook my quads and go into a difficult race pre-exhausted.

With the running race out of the way, I was free to join Dave and Chris for another cheeky Northstar day out! Perfect training for the Dville descents, plus some more warming up ahead of next month's Whistler trip. Awesome!

We spent much of the day hitting our favourite trails ; Livewire and Gypsy. Plus we added in some Big Trees to mix things up a bit. My rental bike had some major brake issues and needed bleeding after the first run. A quick trip back to the shop and it felt much better. But not quite as dialed as I'd like. That's the problem with rentals, they're always a bit knackered. Everytime I go to N* the arguments for investing in a downhill rig become stronger.... Maybe next year.

We had a great day. In fact we rode for a solid 5 hours or so. Dave and Chris were touching clouds and hitting some big features. I followed, for the most part. But I still felt my sense of self preservation keeping me nice and cosy in the comfort zone. Maybe I had the upcoming bike events in the back of my mind. I deliberately eased back to save injury spoiling the goodies to come. Or, more likely, I'm just going at my usual slowly slowly pace of learning. Either way, I need to be hitting those jumps with more confidence if I'm going to get any faster. But I do love hitting the rocky rough stuff. Especially on those big burly bikes. Next weekend I'll be doing much the same but on my trusty Nomad. Downieville here we come!