Weekend Ramblings

Saturday, Kevin and I drove down to Merrimack, New Hampshire for a mountain bike ride and pot luck dinner holiday celebration hosted by Kevin's friend, John. Sixteen of us showed up to ride the nice single track of Horse Hill. I had been on the trails a few times in the past, once for for a snow shoe race and a few times for trail runs, but I didn't remember much about them. Kevin had ridden there a couple of times in the past. He tells me that John and Matt have made enormous improvements and the riding is much better now than it was last time he rode there. All I know is that it was a lot of fun and great riding!

John, who is an incredibly speedy mountain bike racer, had his girlfriend, Kathy (just as speedy as John) take him out for a six mile run before the ride so he would be able to restrain himself to ride with some of his slower friends. It must have worked, because John rode sweep all afternoon. Before this, all I had ever seen of John on the trail is the back of his shirt in the first few seconds of a ride. I settled near the back of the pack and was quite happy there. Honestly, it was a little difficult for me to keep up with even the rear of the pack so I had to work pretty hard. That made it very fun for me. We had a nice little party afterwards with great food and a few cold beers. It was a really nice day.

Sunday found both Kevin and I feeling a little under the weather from too much holiday cheer. We shouldn't have continued the day's celebration when we got back home. So we weren't up to mountain biking, but went for a long meandering walk on the Parsonsfield trails. Even walking, I managed to fall and bang up my knee. Good thing I didn't try to bike! I got in a few miles of running near the end of our walk. Kevin and Scout returned on the road and I ran the winding single track, thinking we'd all get back around the same time. As I was running down the last steep slope toward the road, I could see Kevin driving the truck up the road to meet me at the trail head. I arrived at the passenger door at the exact moment Kevin brought the truck to a halt. Talk about perfect timing!