the best laid plans

What was that thing about the best laid plans of mice and men? Oh right, that they often go awry.

Thursday night didn't entirely go awry, but it didn't exactly go as planned, either. After getting a look at the Provincials course at Woodnewton last Sunday, we wanted to give it another go. And since Durham weekly series was hosting a race on Thursday night, what better chance time than then? Trying it at race pace with other people on the course sounded perfect. So I skipped out of work a bit early, and came home so we could get out there.

Not perfect: trying to get across and out of town during rush hour. In my mind, the worst case scenario would have us take an hour and a half (150% of googlemaps' estimated drive time), so if we left at 4:30, we'd be there in plenty of time to register and get lined up for 7pm. So first, it took us a bit longer to get going, and it was closer to 5 when we hit the road. And then... traffic. It took us two hours to get there, delivering us to the parking lot with about 10min to spare for all the pre-race stuff: getting changed, registered, that last bathroom stop, putting the number plate on, etc.

Honestly, it was enough to make me wonder who could possibly pull this off. The effort of a weekly series from a 9-5 job is incredible - and that's just to get to the race! Both the Boy and I swore that, unless we could ride to it, it would be a long time before we attempted that feat again.

The other unfortunate element is that shortly upon arrival, the Boy realized that his front brake was more than a little messed up, and would not be functioning at all, so no race for him. I felt bad about dashing off and jumping into the race while he would be sitting around, but there was no sense in going through the pain of that drive only to turn around without anyone riding!

Off we went. I recognized a few faces, but didn't really have anyone to mark. So I set off just trying to do course recon at race speed. We were doing two laps of the 8:30am course, and I just tried to stay on a few wheels for the first lap. On the second lap, I decided that I would probably benefit from a slightly longer lap, so I took some detours to recon the 9:30am course, which is what I'll be racing on Sunday. It was very tacky, and the trails were in awesome condition, so it was super fun.

Racing finished up around 8, and it was time to head home. We had to stop for dinner on the way in, as I'm pretty sure I would have gnawed off my arm otherwise. We got in just before 11pm, which again has me in complete awe of the folks who manage to get there on time, do the race, and get up again to go to work the next day. Once was plenty hard for me.