Chasing Mike

Last weekend was all about chasing Mike. I have come to accept that he is faster than I am at everything, so chasing is a normal part of our activity ;)

We drove up to Maine on Thursday night - through a sometimes blinding snowstorm. Thankfully, our friend Robert had been to the house and plowed the driveway (thanks, Robert!). But, there was still PLENTY of snow in which to play on Friday...

While I worked in the morning, Mike set about getting the sleds ready for a ride. We didn't register in NH this year, and have done all of our riding right from the house. this is fairly atypical for us, but we have been rediscovering our local trails, and the conditions have been excellent. We ended up being out for 4 hours, and were delighted with freshly groomed trails in some places, powder in others, and one small ice incident going up Mt. Will (when you are trying to get up a steep incline and your track starts spinning on ice, and you start sliding backward down the mountain, life is scary). It was a great ride, and we ended up with about 80 miles.





After getting back home, a quick change and some food, we trekked over to the Sunday River Inn for a couple of hours of skate skiing. The first trail we took was all uphill, so I chased and chased some more... After the snowmobiling and then the skiing, I was pretty beat - especially my arms and shoulders.




Saturday morning we left Maine at 6:30 am so that we could get back to MA for a bike ride (the weather forecast wasn't looking good for Sunday). We met up with AA, John M and Wayne in Concord Center and set off towards Dunstable and Groton. The boys really played nice (it helped my cause that there was a pretty good headwind) and I managed to chase them for about 3 hours - to the end of Lost Lake Road in Groton. At that point, I called it quits (they proceeded to head into Littleton, Harvard, Stowe, Lincoln, Sudbury...) and headed for home, avoiding as many hills as possible along the route ;). I ended up with 4 hours of riding and 66 miles for the day - that put me at 162 miles for the WEEK - in FEBRUARY! At least I was headed into a rest week ;).

Sunday was going to be a recovery ride, and the weather looked like we would be doing that on the dreaded trainers. We lucked out, though, and had a window in the morning that was cloudy, but dry. Once again, I chased Mike, this time on our SS road bikes, but at least we were at a recovery pace! We got home just as the first raindrops started to fall - great timing!

And yes, this post is a week late. I've been resting this week, and have been too tired to do it until now ;)