Two-Ride Tuesday!

I have been having serious trouble with the sun coming up later and later each day.  This morning, I woke up when hubby Mike got out of bed to do some studying before class.  It was still pitch black outside, and every fiber of my being railed against consciousness, so I assumed that it was an obscene hour like 4 or 5am.  Not so: it was 7, and I had to get up and fix Mike's lunch for school. (Side note: I think I understand now what it is like to be the mother of a teenage boy:  I pack his lunch, occasionally drive him to school, pick his clothing up off the floor, do his laundry and take care of his pets.  However, it is a small price to pay for temporarily being voluntarily unemployed and getting to ride my bike a whole lot.)  Back in the summer, I had no problems being out of bed by 6:30 so I could walk the dogs before leaving for work.  The shorter days certainly play a part, but I think I'm also just getting older.
In any case, I decided that today, instead of reading in bed for a while after Mike left and then getting my day started, I would do some yoga and then take the dogs for a ride.  Paddington and Ellie have decided that my recent change in employment status entitles them to lots and lots of outside time each day, notwithstanding the amount of TV I need to catch up on through Hulu. So whenever I sit on the futon, they stare at me, and whenever I am preparing to go somewhere, they follow me back and forth across the tiny rental house.  It's cute, I suppose, but also very disconcerting.  So, to forestall the staring contest and attempted Jedi mind tricks, I put on a chammy, loaded up the 29er, and drove the 15 minutes through nonexistent Pocatello rush hour traffic to the West Fork trailhead, which was deserted as usual.
And off we went!  While my Giant Anthem X is a little less plush and not 100% ideally sized for me, it does climb very well, so I moved along at a good pace with the dogs.  About a mile from the trailhead, there is the remains of a female moose that had been struck by a car down on the highway and made it up to her final resting place on the side of the trail.  The unfortunate creature is now scattered in thousands of bits around a small crater, because the Forest Service, instead of dragging the carcass away from the main thoroughfare with an ATV, decided to pack it with dynamite and blow it to smithereens.  Why? No idea.  But some evidence remains in the crater, a large hank of fur that did not travel far from the detonation site, and a disagreeable smell that has persisted for a few weeks after the moose's passing.  My dogs have an inconvenient habit of rolling in whatever nasty things they find, so I had to hustle them past the spot and thus could not document the scene with a photo, but it looks pretty much like you would expect it to.

Not like this.

The remainder of the ride was smooth sailing.  We emerged from the singletrack onto an ATV doubletrack that probably sees a lot of traffic from hunters during deer and elk season, but today we had it to ourselves.  I was inspired by the surroundings to take a few self-indulgent photos:

(Thanks to POC for the blue-M&M helmet and BME for the bubblegum Smith Optics sunnies!)

Once I felt that the dogs had gotten enough exercise to save me from an hour or two of relentless staring, we turned around for the descent.  Ellie, being younger and relatively injury-free, is better at staying with me, but I have to stop frequently to wait for Paddington, with her old ACL tear and pulled groin, to catch up.  They also enjoy dunking their tummies in every available bit of water, wallowing like fuzzy alligators, which never gets old:

I also had to stop twice to put them on leash so that equestrians could pass, because they have the alarming habit of attempting to follow behind horses and sniff their butts, which the horses in question may or may not be cool with.  And then, of course, I had to dodge large piles of fresh horse poo in the trail.  Thanks guys.

Back to town to drop off (now tired-ish) pups and run errands, then back in the chammy for the Pocatello Pioneers high school mountain bike team practice!

When I moved to Pokey, I planned to take some time and relax after a stressful summer of working, racing, and preparing for the relocation to branch out and see what there is to see.  I've been wanting to get more involved in coaching-type activities for kids for a while, because getting more kids, especially girls, into biking is good for everybody.  So I Googled "Pocatello high school mountain bike team", and voila!  their Facebook page turned up.  I sent a message to the coach asking if I could help out with the team in some capacity, and received an invitation to come to the next practice.  In short order I started riding with the team, helped out at a race in Ogden, UT, registered with the interscholastic league as an assistant coach, and ordered a team hoodie with "Ladyshred" printed on the back.  I think the kids and their parents are still a little unsure what to make of this random girl yelling at everyone to stop braking so much, but they have been very welcoming and I am learning a lot about coaching teenagers.  It's also great exercise and training for me, because the kids, being half my age, have approximately twice my stamina and energy.  It makes me terribly jealous that they are getting an early start with mountain biking, whereas I didn't take it up until I was 24, but I am still very excited for them and inspired by their motivation.
Today's practice: intervals, in preparation for another race in Ogden this weekend.  There were 4 of us adult/ass coach types, so we divided the kids up into groups and started hammering.  I was the mean one; on the third interval loop I dragged my gaggle up a steep gnarly climb that most of them wouldn't attempt in full.  They were absolutely capable of conquering the climb, all being as they were on 29ers with full 3x9 gearing, but for the most part they are still learning the finer points of shifting, body positioning and pedaling efficiency.  I have designs on having them session another, shorter steep section until they get their butts off their saddles and start cranking like they mean it, but today was not that day.  We finished up our last couple intervals, briefly discussed what we should work on at Thursday practice before the race, and went our separate ways.