Adventuretime

Friday was Jeff's first scheduled track workout of the year, so Nate, Nichole, and I were going to meet him at the Carleton track to do the workout. Since Nichole was going to be there Jeff didn't really bother to make sure he knew the workout ahead of time, so when she didn't show up we kind of made up our own workout based on what he did remember and what I know of how Nichole's workouts generally go. We planned on 6 sets of 200,200,200,400 at 38 seconds for the 200's and 78 seconds for the 400's. A fast, controlled pace for 6k of track work. After the second set Nate and Nichole showed up and told us the workout was supposed to be speed, so it was 4 sets at 32 for the 200's and 74 for the 400's. Taking off those extra 6 seconds off really hurt. I didn't feel too bad that evening, but Saturday morning my legs were not happy with the speed work.

Luckily Saturday I had planned to do some bike riding, which I was hoping would be easy on my sore legs. I was right, for a while anyway. I entered the Ragnarok 105 gravel race over in Red Wing this year and wanted to at least get a decent baseline of where my biking fitness is, make sure my bike is still in good condition, remember how to dress for biking in cool weather, and figure out how much I should be eating and drinking on long rides again. So I stuffed my pockets with food and tools and headed out. Ski season is always my most social time of year, even more so this year with Vakava practice every Wednesday and carpooling with Nate for many skis, and a long road trip down to Indiana filled with a weekend of really no alone time, so my goal for Saturday was to not talk to anyone and hopefully catch up with my own thoughts a bit. This is something long overdue with ski season and everything else that has been going on recently. Long bike rides can be good for that kind of stuff. That lasted all of 10 minutes however, before I even got out of town I ran into Rael out for a run with her body builder of a Vizsla Max, and if I see someone I'm not going to rudely ignore them, so we chatted briefly before going our separate ways.

I was overdressed for the ride out, but things felt pretty smooth and easy. I headed North because there was supposed to be a bit of a North wind and I wanted some help coming home, but that turned out to be false. The wind had already shifted and was coming out of the South, adding to the effortless feel of the ride out. I didn't really plan a route, so I ended up skirting the edge of Farmington along some interesting, curvy, paved trails before finding gravel again. Then I saw this wonderful sign, a sign of adventure!

Minimum Maintenance Road - this way to gravel adventure

Perhaps more adventure than I really intended. I had to crawl under a closed gate to get onto this MMR, which is a pretty good sign that the road is not going to be plowed. I was able to ride up and over the first little bump in the road (which you can see in the background of the picture above) and that was about as far as I made it on the bike. The snow wasn't all that deep, but it was deep enough, and there was ice underneath, that I couldn't keep my bike moving in any direction consistently, so it was faster to hop off and run. Since I do a fair amount of running (although usually not in bike shoes) I had no problem with carrying on with this adventure on foot. The road cut through the Vermillion Highlands natural area, so there was some nice scenery to take in. I was poking along, but not making bad time. I figured if I pushed on I might hit a normal road in a mile or two, because that is how country roads are spaced. After two miles however what I found was a turn as the road stopped going East and started going North, for an undetermined amount of time. It turns out that shoe covers make good snow catchers, so my feet were very cold and wet by this point, so I opted to turn around where at least I had a known distance to cover to get back to good roads. I heard from Jake yesterday that the Ragnarok MMR's may be in similar condition to this one, so I'm glad I went exploring to get a taste for what I might be dealing with in the race.

The condition of the sign shows how minimum the maintenance is here.

After making my way back out to more civilized roads I decided to head for home before my now very wet feet got too cold. Turning back South however I immediately noticed how much the wind had picked up in the time I was off exploring. My legs were also feeling the miles of running through the snow on top of Friday's workout. This part of the workout I was maybe more in my own head then I wanted to be, but what endurance athlete hasn't questioned their life decisions when they are fighting a headwind out in the middle of nowhere and are just hoping their legs hold up long enough to drag them back to the refrigerator. At least it wasn't dark or raining.  Then I turned out of the wind onto the beautiful gravel of Sciota Trail which winds it's way along the Cannon River, ate a granola bar, and all was once again right with the world.

Sunday was too nice not get out for a workout, so I put in my first "long" run of the season. Seventeen miles of fun gravel hills heading out to Farmer Trail and back. One of my favorite routes on foot or on bike. I saw a few of Northfield's gravel riding community just turning off of Farmer Trail when I was turning on to it. I was smart enough to start heading South, so I had the tailwind to help me home this day. I even ran without a shirt for a majority of the run home, it was that nice of a day. The week since has been less than pleasant; I'm going on about 10 total hours of sleep and already over 30 hours of work this week, so the energy reserves are getting a bit low, plus the snow/rain/sleet in the forecast doesn't sound as nice as 60 and sunny was.

So dear reader, where do you find adventure in your world? Random runs/bikes/walks with no idea where you are, going off recipe in kitchen experiments, exploring new isles in the public library? Let me know in the comments, and keep exploring!