"Mud Madness" Cancelled Due to Weather?

After all the careful well laid plans for the weekend Mother Nature put a wrench in the plans. The 2007 Mankato "Mud Madness" was cancelled due to bad weather. After a a brief period of rain Saturday afternoon, the clouds lifted slightly and the rest of the day was fairly nice. The weather forecast at 10:00 PM looked promising with the rain supposedly holding off till later in the day on Sunday. We woke up early morning on Sunday, however, to the sound of wind blown rain against the hotel window. We quickly turned on the weather channel to see a "sea" of yellow and orange heading strait through Mankato. Not knowing what to expect, we started packing up and grabbed a quick continental breakfast in the lobby. On the short drive to Mt. Kato there was a lot of lightning and it started to rain harder. When we pulled into the parking lot we had a good idea the race was going to be cancelled. We talked to the race promoters and they had decided to reschedule the race due to lightning. Andrea and I were a little bummed, but neither of us wanted to race in a mud fest. We packed up the kids and had enough time to make it to Sunday morning church.

Since we are still actively training for the MTB season, we now had to find out what type of workout to substitute in for the missing race. Fortunately, Hutchinson had not received much rain and we were able to go out later in the afternoon for a simulated race at Stahl's Lake. We set up a combination of ski train (double track) and single track to set up a race course. The outer loop of the ski trail is 1.1 mi in length and the single track is 3.1 miles for a total length of a 4.2 mile loop. Andrea and I warmed up on the inner ski trail and then went our separate ways. I turned 4 laps with average times around 23-24 minutes and Andrea completed 3 laps at around 26-27 minutes. Andrea said that the her second lap was her best and despite the slick conditions cleared all the climbs. By the last lap my lower back was getting really sore and I could tell my speed was slowing down. I need to continue to ride more on the trails to get the rest of my upper body ready for race efforts.