2015 started off with a bang, there were mild temps, good training miles and I even got to ski for two weeks. What January had provided, February taketh away. Shitty weather, a shitty case of the flu and an even shittier case of Tennis Elbow. Ice and snow in the South bring on nothing short of pure panic and dread. Everyone’s heard the horror stories of Southern drivers on ice and snow but the real problem is the way that the physical precipitate is dealt with once it’s on the ground. There are a limited number of plows and salt trucks that are available to “deal with” the problem, so as little as an inch of snow that falls during a week of low temps, will go through a daily freeze/thaw cycle that will allow it to disrupt traffic for several days. Cest la vie, la vida puta, dommage.

Here’s 2015’s schedule of Marathon MTB tom-foolery:

Last season I had a love/hate relationship with short XC races, so this year I’m trying to increase the distances and hopefully improve the motivation a bit. I’m sure there will be one or two additional races thrown in and I’ll be spending a bit more time on the road bike this year. I’m slowly acquiring all the necessary bags to put together a few bikepacking trips this year too. I’d like to bikepack the Ouachita Trail sometime this spring but need to find the time and hopefully a good weather window to do it.

With the first race rapidly approaching, I’m horribly under trained and horribly unmotivated, but things will change when the sun comes out and frozen shit stops falling out of the sky. This year the Spa City is just a straight 42 mile race, not the 6 hour format that it was previously. Three hours of pain instead of 6 is a good start on a rather tame course. There’s still the stupid Le Mans start but that’s the least of my worries.

It’s snowed again today, maybe a couple of inches but plenty to send the entire city/county/state into a panic. Schools are already closed for tomorrow and I’m sure businesses will follow suit. My Husky is loving it all. He’ll spend most of the day outside and will only come in to make the rounds and then want to go right back out again. Man I really don’t want to get on the trainer…