Its been a few days since I have had a free second to write anything down. We'll call it the weather.
Training Update:
Getting stronger everyday! Over the weekend had one of the best brick workouts of the season. The story goes like this. I decided the morning of the ride (which was supposed to be 3.5hrs) to map out a new route because for some reason I was getting tired of riding the same ol' roads. After marking out my new path, I embarked upon what was soon to become one of the craziest rides of my life. Ideally, I was going to drop off the mountain and descend into Lenior the land of flats roads, country women, brown water and hot weather then come back up the mountain after a little sight seeing and drop into Blowing Rock. That was the plan. Here's what happened. I started out riding and got to the road that was going to take me off the mountain. Much to my surprise the road was a steep gravel descent into the backwoods of Appalachian. Sketched out I made the call to turn around and ask one of the locals if this in fact was the right road. I found an elderly man on sitting on his lawn mower and asked directions. He informed me that the gravel would end 3-4miles down the road. Since he looked like a trusting ol' timer I figured Father Time knew what he was talking about and took his word. Shoot, what's 3-4 miles down a gravel road if I get to ride on flat roads anyways. The 3-4 miles turned into a dramatic decent down a gravel ravine into a land of nothingness. I found myself sliding down a loose gravel road for an hour in search of the fabled paved road. These words fail to describe the level of pissed off I was at having to walk down this road with my TT bike. Many might think why not turn around? Well, by the time I had thought of that I had traveled 3-4 miles and kept thinking the road was right around the corner. The only person I saw for an hour and half as I traveled deeper into the bowels of Appalachian was two ladies driving a beat up pickup truck. I asked directions and almost got laughed off the road as I was informed I had a long ways to go before I got to the paved road. I pictured the old man sitting on his lawn mower laughing at how he had tricked me. I was reduced to a caveman style vocabulary as I grunted and cursed my way down the mountain. THIS IS NOT A ROAD, THIS IS A TRAIL I screamed every thirty seconds. Finally I got to the bottom and took a right (I guessed that to be the correct way) I biked for another hour before I saw anyone or anything. Then I found myself at a general store where I asked directions. The man working the feed store in formed me that if I "followed the yellow brick road" I would find myself in Lenior before I knew it. Great I thought. I found the only man in Appalachian with a sense of humor. By this time my total riding time was fastly approaching three hours when I was supposed to only ride 3.5 hours. Oh yea, it was 96+ degrees. There were points in the ride that I was riding down the road and the tar on the road was melting and sticking to my tires. To add to my missery I ran out of water for forty minutes. Delierous I found a BP and stopped for water, soda, oatmeal creampie (most bang for the buck). The lady working behind the desk told me the only way I could get back to Boone now was to bike to Wilksboro and take hwy 421 straight up to Boone. So thats what I did. I biked for close to 5hrs 21min in 96degrees down a dirt road thanks to a mean old man and then had to TT across the desert with melting tires to find myself climbing the final 12miles (avg 7%) into Boone. I was supposed to run following adn being a sucker for pain. I jumped off my bike, threw on my shoes and clocked out 6miles (first two miles 5:42 avg miles pace, last two miles 5:34 avg pace)!
Moral of the story: Do not trust an old man sitting on his John Dear to tell you directions when embarking on a 3.5 hr bike ride unless you want to bike down a gravel road for an hour and half.
Totals for this week were high: 25k pool, 13.5hrs bike, 58mi run
I'm hungry.
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