Webster defines The Battleaxe as follows: The thing you wield the first weekend of September in Trexlertown then put away sometime around Thanksgiving. Or so. The battleaxe is not to be abused foolishly. It is to be handled with precision, and brute force, when necessary. But never is it to be abused, brought out when the season does not warrant it.
In other words, who the F does Microbursts in February? For real, come on man. Stop that nonsense.
But it's almost the season. The battleaxe is being brought out. After a year of trying to erase the mulligan that was 2013, it is almost time to pull the battleaxe out of the shed, strengthen it, sharpen it. Almost time to practice hitting things with it. Almost time to congregate in a field and beat each other with our axes.
Almost, but not quite yet. Soon. Like August 25th "the plan" begins.
Call this the Prelude to Battleaxe season. For the next month I'll be taking the battleaxe on little excursions here & there. But for the most part I'll be riding my bike hard, doing some mountain bike riding, enjoying stuff as much as I can, and doing some hard efforts in an attempt to figure out how to sharpen once it's time to start sharpening.
I was originally going to name this something along the lines of Bard & Jehovah's Cyclocross Battleaxe but decided against it. Someone pointed out that The Bard is like this Jehovah's Witness of Cyclocross, always there at the train station jamming it in your face when all you want to do is grab your coffee and go to work. And then you really just want to say, "Stick it up your ass, churchie" but you hold your tongue because it's kind of rude. I digress.
So I took like 4 days off a while ago then I rode for 7 days, then I took today off. The last week went like this:
Monday I rode with D for the first time after taking 4 days off. I felt great. Tuesday I led the B ride where we popped Carson & Glenn before we even knew it. I felt kinda like crap but it was hot. Wednesday was the Pharma Flyers ride, which is another crew out in North Branch. Almost 3 hours with the ride there, felt ok but not amazing. That was the prelude to vacation.
Then we went to New England for a long weekend with no real plans in mind.
Thursday we drove to Vermont and rode up the Connecticut River, then back down the other side. We went through Dartmouth on the way back. At the end, I was tired, a little nervous about the coming days because I had spent the previous days plowing forward on my road bike basically breaking wind for people to draft in. Legs were feeling kinda heavy.
Kingdom Trails
Friday & Saturday we ended up going to Kingdom Trails in Vermont. The first day I think we did 13 miles and the second just shy of 20. After Friday, D announced that she enjoyed it so much that she wanted to go back for another round. We ended up following most of the loop that Utah, Kirt, Iggy, & Woody had done last year. I guess that's pretty much all you really need to know. These trails are so amazing that those 4 guys went and loved them, then we went and loved them. Being able to put a trail network together that both experts and beginners can enjoy is no small feat. This place is remarkable.
But really, it boils down to this. If you've been there, you get it. If not, you probably don't. You really should just go check it out. The following day we used the map and made up our own loop, partly of the trails we did the day before and partly stuff we just wanted to check out. It was even better than the previous day, and we ended up staying out almost 3 hours.
Sunday, we drove back and hit Lippman on the way, from herein known as Lipton Park. Lipton was ok. It rained before we got there and it was loaded with roots, so it was kinda greasy in a not necessarily fun kinda way. Lipton was kinda fun in spots, like the final downhill to the lot. That was so good that D wanted to ride back up and do it again, so we did, and ended the ride with a double downhill fun run. Then we got lunch and drove home in the weekend traffic on 87.
The good thing about vacations with me is that I often lose weight when I go on them. I ate a bunch and drank some and when I got on the scale this morning I was sub-190. I should go on vacation all the time. It would keep me in tip-tip shape.
The Battleaxe
I will end each post with this section, until I get sick of doing this. This is the training part of the blog so I will keep it separate so as not to bore you with the training stuff if you want to skip it. I may write little to nothing here. But I will try to explain what it is I did every day to help the training effort.
Today I took off. I need to rest properly now. I also tried not to eat too much.
In other words, who the F does Microbursts in February? For real, come on man. Stop that nonsense.
But it's almost the season. The battleaxe is being brought out. After a year of trying to erase the mulligan that was 2013, it is almost time to pull the battleaxe out of the shed, strengthen it, sharpen it. Almost time to practice hitting things with it. Almost time to congregate in a field and beat each other with our axes.
Almost, but not quite yet. Soon. Like August 25th "the plan" begins.
Call this the Prelude to Battleaxe season. For the next month I'll be taking the battleaxe on little excursions here & there. But for the most part I'll be riding my bike hard, doing some mountain bike riding, enjoying stuff as much as I can, and doing some hard efforts in an attempt to figure out how to sharpen once it's time to start sharpening.
I was originally going to name this something along the lines of Bard & Jehovah's Cyclocross Battleaxe but decided against it. Someone pointed out that The Bard is like this Jehovah's Witness of Cyclocross, always there at the train station jamming it in your face when all you want to do is grab your coffee and go to work. And then you really just want to say, "Stick it up your ass, churchie" but you hold your tongue because it's kind of rude. I digress.
So I took like 4 days off a while ago then I rode for 7 days, then I took today off. The last week went like this:
Monday I rode with D for the first time after taking 4 days off. I felt great. Tuesday I led the B ride where we popped Carson & Glenn before we even knew it. I felt kinda like crap but it was hot. Wednesday was the Pharma Flyers ride, which is another crew out in North Branch. Almost 3 hours with the ride there, felt ok but not amazing. That was the prelude to vacation.
Then we went to New England for a long weekend with no real plans in mind.
Thursday we drove to Vermont and rode up the Connecticut River, then back down the other side. We went through Dartmouth on the way back. At the end, I was tired, a little nervous about the coming days because I had spent the previous days plowing forward on my road bike basically breaking wind for people to draft in. Legs were feeling kinda heavy.
Kingdom Trails
Friday & Saturday we ended up going to Kingdom Trails in Vermont. The first day I think we did 13 miles and the second just shy of 20. After Friday, D announced that she enjoyed it so much that she wanted to go back for another round. We ended up following most of the loop that Utah, Kirt, Iggy, & Woody had done last year. I guess that's pretty much all you really need to know. These trails are so amazing that those 4 guys went and loved them, then we went and loved them. Being able to put a trail network together that both experts and beginners can enjoy is no small feat. This place is remarkable.
But really, it boils down to this. If you've been there, you get it. If not, you probably don't. You really should just go check it out. The following day we used the map and made up our own loop, partly of the trails we did the day before and partly stuff we just wanted to check out. It was even better than the previous day, and we ended up staying out almost 3 hours.
Sunday, we drove back and hit Lippman on the way, from herein known as Lipton Park. Lipton was ok. It rained before we got there and it was loaded with roots, so it was kinda greasy in a not necessarily fun kinda way. Lipton was kinda fun in spots, like the final downhill to the lot. That was so good that D wanted to ride back up and do it again, so we did, and ended the ride with a double downhill fun run. Then we got lunch and drove home in the weekend traffic on 87.
The good thing about vacations with me is that I often lose weight when I go on them. I ate a bunch and drank some and when I got on the scale this morning I was sub-190. I should go on vacation all the time. It would keep me in tip-tip shape.
The Battleaxe
I will end each post with this section, until I get sick of doing this. This is the training part of the blog so I will keep it separate so as not to bore you with the training stuff if you want to skip it. I may write little to nothing here. But I will try to explain what it is I did every day to help the training effort.
Today I took off. I need to rest properly now. I also tried not to eat too much.
