Thinking About My Last Muddy Race

OK, home from school and guess what?  Still raining...no longboarding today!!  I finished my homework and decided to look through my old racing journal. This is my race report for Hanna (the muddy race I talked about in my morning post).  I'm so glad my Mom had me keep up with the journal, it's funny to look at now! Hope you like reading it!!  

Rain Rain Go Away

OK rain, you can go ahead and leave now!!  It's been raining all week...and just not a little bit, I'm talking about the kind of rain with Tornado warnings. I think the race at Alafia is going to be very interesting.  River Loop is probably a disaster!! ...And I'm trying to remember the last time I raced in the mud.  Oh yeah, I  remember, I was 6 years old at the Hanna Park race.  The water was up to my chain ring.  But this is going to be a whole different story because the Hanna Race was only about 2 miles long.  I've never had to race 6 hours in the mud before.  I have to honest... I'm kind of excited!!  I'm not sure I will be able to meet my goal, but it's going to be fun getting muddy!   

Thinking about you on your Birthday

Just A Quick Update

Are you wondering if I got any riding in this weekend? That would be.. a no. I spent the weekend at my Nana's house. My sister and I had an awesome time doing fun stuff with our Nana, Auntie, and cousin Maizie.

I'm certainly not worried about missing a ride because I know I will more than make up for it next weekend. Yes, I will most definitely be doing the 6 hours at Alafia. I'm soo ready for the challenge and can't wait. Even though, I have no problems riding North Creek or Roller Coaster, I decided to enter with the beginner women. (I guess there is not a junior division, right?) So...with the less technical course (9 miles long, I think) I'm curious to see how many laps I can get in... in 6 hours. My mind is telling me 5, not sure if my little stick legs are up to it. But, hey it's good to have a high goals, right? Just like at school last Friday. We had to do the 1/2 mile run. My goal was to beat everyone in my class (even the boys) and improve my time from 6 months ago. I was worried all week, after my little longboarding incident, (I had trouble walking for a couple days) but I managed to come in 1st (15 seconds ahead of 2nd) with a time of 3:26 beating my time from before. Not too bad for someone that never runs!!

That's it... and I will see you at Alafia. Dirt girl, I owe you some Squirt Lube.

Tip For Tuesday

It's not a good idea to ride your longboard over sewer grates!!

Boyette

Let me first start off by saying thank you to Genuine Innovations for the awesome tools....without them we would not have been able to ride today. Of course, my Dad was having bike problems, like always!! Just because he replaced his frame, doesn't mean he's not going to have any more issues with his bike. Well, today's issue was...his crank was squeaking and about ready to fall off. So, he pulled out my new tool set from my gear bag and gave it quick fix. And then... we were off.


Second, I have to say that my sister Kiki deserves the "Best Rider" award today!! She was awesome. On trails she usually has problems with, like Loch Ness, 1st part of Spider Berm and Gator Pit, she just barreled right through them and left my Mom in the dust. Awesome job Kiki!!!

Gator pit

Canyon

Taking a break

South Abyss

Last climb on South Abyss...and thank you to my Wolverines!! You didn't let me down!

Just having a little fun on the way back.

***Thanks for the comment on my last post. That's awesome Stephen Foster is building some new trails. Definitely worth checking out!!

Sunday morning- we were out the door and ready for our next adventure. We arrived at Stephen Foster State park 3 hours later and ready to check out our cabin. It was awesome by the way!! The cabin had a huge porch with lots of rocking chairs, a fireplace, and bunk beds (which I wasn't allowed to sleep in because sometimes I sleep walk), but anyway...I loved it, even more than the cabin in Tennessee!!

OK, so everything was great so far and we were ready to check out the trails. We rode about a mile on this. What would you call this?? It's definitely not a single track, let's call it a quad track. Well, the quad track was so boring, we all agreed it was time to do something else.

So, we got changed, grabbed our hiking sticks, and headed over to the Florida Hiking trail. The trail was awesome, it went right along the Suwannee River. We were tempted to ride our bikes on the trail, but decided we had better be good!

We were using my Mom's old camera, but carefully look at this picture. Doesn't it look like ghosts are around us?? The rest of the picture is normal. Creepy!!!

We walked about a mile, then we started to hear a chainsaw. We looked across the river and saw a really scary looking trailer and a man with a chainsaw. He stopped using it as soon as he saw us, yes it was definitely time to turn around!

Day 2: Looks like the ghosts are around us again.

Off to the Big Shoals/Little Shoals

Ready to ride, we had our trail maps and instructions from the SBA for the best route. It started off OK, but here we go again with the quad track. Finally, after a couple miles we came across a single track trail, the Mossy Ravine. Nice trail, but it didn't last long, maybe about a mile. Then, back to the quad track.

A couple miles into the ride we heard water so, we got off our bikes and went exploring.

After riding on the quad track for awhile, we came across another trail called Palmetto. Very cool trail, it ran right along the Suwannee River. The rapids were awesome!!

At that point, the biking trail turned into a hiking only trail. So, we had to either back track(which we hate doing) or take a bunch of quad tracks to the Big Shoals entrance. After talking to the park ranger, we decided to take the quad tracks. Oh, we were not happy, look at the trail. He could of told us it was under water. So, then you know what we did?? We headed back to the hiking trail and walked our bikes back to the Big Shoals entrance. It was only about a mile, but it was a pain in the you know what to walk the bikes. Especially, since it would have been an awesome MTB trail.

Taking a break on the hiking trail.

We finally reached the entrance, then took the WoodPecker Paved trail back to Little Shoals. The trail was only about 3.5 miles. But, it was a very LONG 3.5 miles. Time for hot fudge sundaes at stinky McDonald's. After taking a little break, we decided to head back to Big Shoals to check out the Long Branch trail. It was the only trail we hadn't been on yet. Well, we should have skipped it! It looked like no one had been on it in a year. There was no trail and the only way we didn't get lost was because we followed the blue marks on the trees.

While my Dad was putting the bikes on the rack, my Mom and I came across this. I guess the bats live in this tower and come out 15 minutes after sun down. Weird!!

I know the bats were in there because we saw millions of poop balls on the ground.

We ended the day back at the cabin. We had hot dogs on the grill and roasted marshmallows.

None of us really missed having a TV. We spent the evenings playing games and drawing.

Family picture on our last morning at the cabin.

Even though, the trails weren't what we expected, we still had an awesome time. I still think they should allow bikes on the hiking trails. We only saw 1 hiker!

So, with no where to ride on Tuesday morning, we decided to head home. On our way home, we made many, many stops. First stop was, O'Leno State Park for a picnic lunch. Now, that was an awesome park, no biking though.

Nature's playground

Leave it up to my Dad to find a toilet tree.


Second stop, San Felasco. Finally, real trails!! We rode for about 10 miles, just enough to burn off some extra energy and save some time for the next stop.

I love finding things to jump!! Look, I caught some air.

Third stop, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park. First time at the park, and glad we stopped. We hiked up to the tower and was able to see some wild horses. Too tired to do any more hiking or biking. Ready to go home now and still had about a 2 hour drive!!

Thanks CAT EYE

I received my fun little package from CAT EYE today. The computer rocks and I love the funky socks.