Independence weekend. update

Ahh. Its nice being home.
Saturday evening I took an easy ride on the road bike. 22 miles. The 1st few miles I had familiar cramps in my quads. I usually get these when I get off of my standard riding pattern. They went away and I had a nice ride.
Got home and had a nice healthy dinner. No fried, no raw. Meat with vegtables and very little carbs.

Sunday
With no better ideas, and a ride at patapsco being cancelled cause of rain, I went over to Rosaryville. I did a lap there and bagged it. The trails were mostly damp but the mudholes were huge.
With dread I stepped on the scale Sunday evening to see what damage had been done from the previous 3 days. Still under 210. I was happy. Well not totally happy. I'm starting to feel like a skinny 12 year old boy again so I had an iron lifting session for about an hour.
If I'm going to be slow, I might as well look the part.

Monday
Met up with Billy,Laurie, and Harold at Patapsco for a 3-5 hour ride planned.
A couple of Lauries friends showed up. 1 was wearing a shenandoah mt 100 shirt. I'm making small talk and ask him about his time. He says "10:30" (10 hours,30 minutes). Oh fuck.
For reference my time was 13:02 and my fast friends come in at 11:30
Than to make it worse, they start talking about coming in 2nd at the previous weekends 12hour race.
What am I getting myself into?
The "racers" ended up splitting from us after a couple of miles.
Trail conditions were ok except for the wet roots. It had rained the night before. That and the humid conditons made the rooty hills tricky. I kept spinning out on stuff I'd normally ride.
Part of it I'm sure was the crappy tire I was using. This was something my brother had picked up cheap on the net.
By the end of the ride I was ready, and am still going to trash it. Couldn't blame its performance on age either. Its got less than 100 miles on it.
Finished the ride up with 3:45 ride time and 22 miles. Yup, like I said we weren't making the best time on the roots.

Finished the day off with a bbq at the father in laws.
His stepson, who is a downhill racer, was there so it wasn't as boring as normal.
Had somebody to talk bikes with. He was also a part time shop rat like me for a while.