Hmm ...

Someone sent me a flyer for this charity winter mountain bike race the other day and I've been seriously considering it. Now that I've proven to myself that I can actually ride my bike on snow and in colder temperatures, it doesn't seem like as crazy of an idea as it would have even a couple of months ago. In fact, I'm starting to think it's a really good idea. Here are the advantages, as I see them:

• If I finish and don't do horribly, it could be a confidence builder for the upcoming racing season.
• It will be a way of assessing how much progress I have made in my training without having it count against me. It could be a warm up to my race series with no points to worry about.
• It looks like it will be, at most, a little over six miles, which is definitely something I can finish.
• There are awards and I could win something if there are enough beginner women who are too wussy to show up.
• If all else fails and I don't do very well, at least it will be a training day and will be more fun than spending three hours on the trainer like I did on Saturday.
• I'm getting really excited about racing, and even though I know I'm not really ready yet, this would give me a little taste.

The drawbacks, as I see them, are few:

• It will undoubtedly be cold.
• I could hurt myself before I even get to the racing season.
• If I do poorly, I could really get down on myself before the racing season even starts. (I think I'm starting to make progress on this aspect of my personality, though.)

I have a little bit of time to decide. The race is on Feb. 16, and you can register on race day, so I will probably wait until the last minute to make up my mind. Right now it's looking like a good idea.

On a completely unrelated note, I found out this week that Floyd Landis is going to be racing Lumberjack. Chris Eatough (who has raced it before and is also on one of our Spinervals DVDs) is also supposed to be there. It looks like we will be going to the race to gawk discreetly (can you gawk discreetly, or is gawking inherently not discreet?) because we will definitely not be racing it this year. Chris is going to ask Rick if we can volunteer to do something so that we will at least have a legit purpose (besides gawking) for being there.