Just a bit of an update while having a rain day . . .

. . . and not riding.

First, a quick nod to my favorite Archeologist, Dr. Daniel Jackson of SG1.

I kid you not, this was today's BC comic!  Daniel would be so proud.  Actually I guess he is, since I have no reason to believe he's not going to catch this at some point.  No doubt Jack will bring it to his attention if nothing else.  Okay, so that was my Stargate fangirl gushing for the moment.  We no return to our regularly scheduled blog!

Sunday found me once again in Winton woods, turning laps for all I was worth, working hard and well after dark to get in the mileage I was hoping for.  Sunday of course was the 11th, and at least at that point the weather for the week of the 12th thru 16th was supposed to be a wash out.  It has in fact been raining here since lat Sunday night.  Loosely my mileage goal for this month is either 160 or 200 miles, which ever I can manage in the time allowed for July.  My thinking was with a rained out week before me, if I hit 100 miles by Sunday, I'd still be able to get in the rest in the bottom two weeks of the month.  Mainly because I still don't have the trainer for indoors yet.  But I'll get there.  It's only going to be really important come late December or January when it will be too cold and wet to ride outside.  In the meantime I'm just really enjoying burning up the trails especially since I've once again discovered the joy of riding at night.  Yes, at night, in the dark.

You see I've always had somewhat unusual eyesight.  Back years ago when I spent so much time riding, I'd spend plenty of time running dark country roads at night and not even think about it.  Reflectors on my bike then and now yes, but I've never really used lights.  That's how unusual my eyesight is, pitch black, no moon and there I am flying along at night.  Not unlike a bat, which always gave me a chuckle because I can see them flying about at night just as easily as folk see birds in the daylight.  Means of course seeing the road, and or anything or anyone on it is just as easy.  So Sunday the sun went down at nineish, and I still had some miles to go and the dark didn't phase me at all.  But I'd forgotten how much I enjoy that sense of freedom and, almost power?  No, I enjoy the ability, the capability, to see in the dark.  It also means despite getting somewhat older, I still have preternatural vision.  I'm more than twice the age I was back in the day when I'd be running the back roads at night, and yet, here I am, once again enjoying it.  

And of course it meant when the sun set and I had miles to go I could finish the ride without a seconds hesitation.  Mind you unlike the old days, I'm running dedicated trails that motor vehicles are not allowed on.  So there's no risk of not being seen and run over.  Should it happen that for whatever reason I decide to start road riding at night again, you can bet I'll have marker lights and be very clearly visible.  In my own defense the only time I got hit by a truck back in the day it was broad daylight and all the lights in the world wouldn't have prevented the accident, but I'm NOT going to take chances again.

So by the time I was securing Serenity back aboard Jumper One, I'd completed 17.14 miles which put me up over 100 so far for the month.  Made me very happy.  And , as it turns out, the forecast has changed and I should be able to get out Wednesday and Thursday to knock back some miles, and then again on Saturday and Sunday.  So it's beginning to look very much like I'm going to be able to make 200 miles this month after all.  And you know, that makes me happy as I sit here watching it rain!

One heck of a case of déja vu . . .

. . .is in effect what Gillion said to me as I stopped for some McDee's fries on the way to Burlington Kentucky's England Idlewild Park and home of some of the Bluegrass state's best single track.  It's the preferred home of the Dirty Divas cycling group and I remembered this morning it was the first place I'd ever done real single track Mountain Biking.  Yes, you read that right, I remembered that it was the place I experienced real single track for the first time.  I remembered it this morning because it was to happen today.  So on my way back to a place I'd never been before I remembered there was a McDee's on the way there.

The timing worked out perfectly as that's when Jill called.  So we got to chat and I was remarking on the bizarre state of my life remembering future events.  How after decades of being a SciFi fangirl, my own life was way more unusual than some of the stuff I've seen or read about in SciFi.  Having trouble remembering parts of the past because of trauma, but having near perfect recall of events that technically hadn't happened yet.  But they felt real to me, and the details we more than oddly prophetic, but stuff I remembered doing.

So what I knew for certain was where I was going, what I was going to be doing, and that it would all work out fine.  No flats, no getting lost, no major problems, just the thrill of flying through meadows and woods, over all kinds of terrain I'd never, ever, have imagined doing over 20 years ago when I was doing so much cycling.  That I'd be doing all sorts of stuff I'd never done before and would make it back to the Jumper hot, sweaty and gross, but otherwise fine.

I didn't bother digging into all the details, but went on instinct, and let my heart, mind, body and soul remember all the things I'd never done before.  Which is where it kinda went slightly wonky.

My PLAN was to follow the signs, go to the first left before the bridge, take the beginners trail once or twice, and then try the intermediate if that went well.  You know what they say about plans right?

Instead I took the other left before the bridge, because I saw it and had a "Yes!  This is where I went..."  moment and turned right.  A Mile and a half, some seriously knarly single track, and one fall later I came out to the bridge.  From the left.  Just before the bridge.  Off the Technical trail.  Or at least parts of what was the old technical trail they had changed around.  The map linked here is the OLD map, so I was on all new, knarly terrain.  I felt like an idiot.  The guys on the other hand were impressed (NOT what I was going for) that I'd just come off the technical track.   That quickly turned to astonishment when I said it was my first time mountain biking and I'd taken the technical train by accident.

But it was stuff I'd remembered from the last, first time.  Embarrassing that.  So as Jill had said earlier, one heck of a case of déja vu!

To be honest next time, I'm going to go with something a little bit easier...