Posessed

A trip to the trails with the entire family made up the evening. The plan was to hit the bike/run split of this weekend's offroad triathlon that I'm considering doing. We were running a bit late getting out the door since I had to take a few minutes to replace the derailleur cables on my old Trek so my son could join me for a lap. Since we're making them do a lap at the upcoming 24hr race it seemed appropriate to bring them out for a ride so they can get used to the bike. Dylan, my son, and I headed out for our lap while Mrs. Lord of the Chainrings and my other 2 sons went for a trail run. The first trail I brought Dylan on was called eXtreme Trail. I figured if we started with the hardest stuff first, the rest will look easy to him. To my surprise, he sailed over the technical rock and roots with no fear! Heck, he even went over the skinny wood plank bridge! Every major obstacle I would look back as he shunned the 'chicken' trail that avoided the obstacle and made it look easy. I just couldn't break him. On one of the little rocky uphills the toeclip broke on his bike. I ripped the remaining peices off the bike which left him with just a standard pedal. This wouldn't be a problem as there was no more technical trails after this. Halfway through the lap is a huge uphill called ascension. It's a loose gravel road that goes up the side of the ski hill. He even made that look easy too. With a little speed work on the flats, I think he could be one heck of a rider. Maybe I'll give him a nudge to come for a few more rides with me. Again, I don't want to push him into something he's not interested in but he has talent!
At the end of the lap I changed clothing and headed out for a quick trail run to survey the course. On my way out I passed Tyler, my youngest, who was a good 50 feet in front of Mrs. Lord of the Chainrings. Yes, she was losing to a 13 year old. I don't even think he was sweating. As I got closer I could see that the Mrs. was laying down on the job at one point. All up her leg and side of her body was scrapes and dirt. Looks like someone has been body surfing. That's my wife. Her feet are definitely heavier than she thinks because I was told that she kept tripping over things to the point where Tyler had to straighten her out by telling her to 'stop doing that mom!'. You just can't take her anywhere. Blake, my oldest, I think has been playing too many video games. He was behind mummy by a good 20 feet and looked like he was having a heart attack. I'll take him out for a lap sometime soon. I know he can do the technical stuff on the bike too as he has been out with us on these trails before and done well.
My run was scary. Scary as in I think someone stole my legs and replaced them with... a gazelle's legs. My legs were posessed! I have never run that fast in my life!! I just looked down and they were motoring along at a sub 5min/km pace. I've never seen the number 4 on my garmin pace monitor before. Sometimes it was very low 4:00min/km. I was just along for the ride as clearly these were not my legs. I've never run on trail before. I run railtrail but its wide flat gravel doubletrack whereas this was real uneven rocky/rooty singletrack trail. It was so exciting! It was almost like racing a mountain bike through technical singletrack as I had to pre-plan every step and judge the extension of my leg depending on potholes and uphills and log jumps and wow this was alot of fun. I can't run that fast on a flat surface, but something about being offroad in the forest made my adrenaline pump and I felt like I was flying. I can't wait to do this again, I may have found my calling. After the run I was stoked, it was a very short run due to daylight but it was enough to convince me that I really want to do the race this weekend. We're still waiting to find out what the repair costs on the wife's bike will be as that will influence my willingness to register. I have to decide by tomorrow.