Well... not much has happened in my life since I finalized my racing schedule... I've gone on with classes and fitting rides in when I can (I'm up to 3 days a week now with one road ride... woot).  The biggest news that I have is that I went backpacking last weekend, forgoing one day of riding.  My buddy Zach and I decided, friday night, to pack our bags, head down to Caledonia SP, pound out 10 miles of the AT.  It was snowy, and out boots made that lovely crunch-crunch sound as we made our way through the wilderness of Caledonia, then Michaux SF.  The scenery was beautiful and the trail was fantastic.  The camping though (Birch Run Shelter) was less than fantastic though.  First of all, it took us 3 tries to get our fire started with a camp stove because Zach's lighter ran out of fluid, and once the fire was going, we had to put wood on it every few minutes because we couldn't burn anything bigger than a medium sized stick because everything was wet and covered in ice.  Second, it was cold.  Really, really cold at night.  my 20 degree bag was not the correct equipment for the occasion and I was huddled down in there, below the inner drawstring with long underwear and fleece pants and sweater on with my jacket, gloves, and water bottles at my feet.  I woke up at 6:00 (we had a 1.5 mile hike to our car and a 9:00 ride to get to), 45 min earlier than expected, to frozen shoes and pants.  I got a little tiny fire started from the few remaining coals from the night before to semi-defrost out shoes.  When the fire ran out we looked at each other, collectively muttered a "screw breakfast lets get out of here,"  packed up and left.



     In the end, though, it was worth it.  The Sunday morning ride was good cause we did some cool trails (Shake 'n Bake) in the snow.  Monday, I went back to class and did a spur of the moment road ride with one of my Geology major friends.  I had a good climb of Waggoner's Gap and it looks like I'm going to be in good shape heading into the Marathon season.  Especially after Super Week.  Oh, I don't think I've told anyone about that.  Over spring break (Mar 7-17) I will be going backpacking again on the 7-9th, then going home for a few days.  Monday will be a 3hr recovery road ride to recover from a weekend of hiking.  Tuesday will be a 6 hr road ride.  Wednesday 4hr mountain bike adventure at French Creek, hopefully doing laps of the race course (pending the repair/upgrade condition of my Spider).  Thursday will be a 5 hr road adventure.  Then Thursday night I will head back to Carlisle to be a councilor at the aforementioned Zach's junior development camp.  I'm really excited about that because I'll probably spend the weekend hanging out with Jeremiah Bishop.  He is going to be the main instructor.  I think... I don't know if Zach has finalized that yet.  Whatever will be will be...



Peace for now... probably more to come during Super Week!



Jake

So I finally have a race schedule out!  It's fixed!  I've written it in pen on my calender! I will now share it with you!