Not every weekend is a race weekend, thankfully. Starting the season out slow with an off weekend immediately following the opener of Nittany, for which I am thankful, because as the seasons change and the weather gets colder, I always feel like I might be getting sick. Constantly, OMG I just coughed. Allergies? Swallowed wrong? SICK!? Workouts in the cold air always leave a burn at the back of the throat.

So this weekend kicked off with some mountain biking on Friday morning.  Not far into one of the first trails, I planted my pedal into a rock, tumbled sideways, and punctured my can of PitStop on a very pointy rock, spraying oozy white foam all over my back. Very ick.

After mountain biking, Nick and I headed to Maine for some lobster. Simply because I really wanted to moil my own lobster. Which involves picking out said lobsters WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE, and boiling them. WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE. Why did I desire to do this? Ugh. Well, in Maine you need a permit to actually have a fire, so to get around this, we just camped at a cozy, albeit noisy and camper-infested campground right on the beach. Very nice evening.

We spent Saturday eating and driving around Boston, visiting a museum, and then relaxing at a hotel and getting ready for Sunday, which was going to be a fun group ride with Boston-area friends and a group from Philly called the Lone Wolf Company. The ride was the Lone Wolf Company Field Operation, Massachusetts Edition, #LWCFLDOPSMA for ‘short’ (Hosted by the lovely Honey Bikes and Ride Studio Cafe in Lexington, MA).

The Sunday ride was supposed to be a 48ish mile bandit ride through area trails (70ish% trail, rest pavement). Riding my Focus Mares CX on some file clinchers with 60 psi, the road sections were fast and I had no problems on the rocky trails. Only one flat was had by me, and it was a freak-flat of a tiny rock worming its way into my rear rubber. The ride itself was fine. The trails were great, though we cut out early because the group-ride portion of the event made it way too slow what with all the stops. The way we all pinched off as separate groups made it so Nick and I weren’t even riding with the friends we intended to (though we did make a few new ones). All-in-all, the “funtastic group adventure ride punctuated with beers and…. other activities….” is not for me. I will stick to some fun rides with close friends, and leave “shenanigans” up to the other people.

Next weekend: undecided local races, hopefully Cyclocross at White Park in Concord, NH on Saturday.

Gloucester Cat 3 to follow.