Crickets, Ants and Lobster
What do the three items have in common? All would be living in our cabin by the end of today’s training ride. We woke up this morning after a well deserved nights rest to cloudy skies but to the weatherman’s promise of warm temperatures. That being determined, breakfasts were ate, tires properly inflated and PowerBars and Gu were gathered as we began to roll out of the cabin at around 10:30. Today there would be two options for riding, either a short route or a long route. Prior to leaving for the trip, I had only looked at the long route options in the training bible as I thought I would have no problems keeping up on the longer rides. Still not feeling well and suffering from the sinus infection, I decided I’d make that decision when we reached the break-off point at mile 15. The ride to this point was fabulous and went very well. The skies became sunny and there was only one significant climb to this point. The great thing about significant climbs is that it usually means there’s a significant descent soon to follow. This mountain held to this rule of thumb and we were in no time flying downhill reaping the benefits of all of our hard work. This was the first time I’d ridden anything like this, so I was a little tentative to go all out and instead decided to ride slightly more conservatively than some of my teammates.
At the first rest stop, the decision needed to be made…..long route or short route. The weather finally cleared up and I debated and debated about what it was that I wanted to do. Fortunately I had the thought that if I went the shorter route I could always add miles once I got back near the cabin if I was felling good. Thank God I thought that because looking back, there’s no way I could have finished the longer route as the short route was about to kick my butt.
The group split into two equal smaller groups, riders going the shorter option included Carl Peshoff, Karen Palmer, Marjorie Parr, MEB, Mike Schiltz, Frank Kolasa, Tim House and me. Those left in the larger group were Scott Thor, Rick Parr, Pat Papczun, Bob Grimm, Samantha House, Darrin Kert, Jim Flesher and Stuart Hamilton.
Once making our separate ways, we were treated to a wonder 4+ mile climb. I instantly was hoping that this was one of Scott’s categorized climbs but being unfamiliar with the cue sheets, I was unclear. As luck would have it, bad luck in this case, Frank’s chain decided to break at this point so we came to another stop while the unofficial team wrench Tim took care of business. Working way too fast, we were off again continuing on that climb working our way to the top where we would enjoy another great descent and a few carefree miles while we made our way to the days next scheduled rest stop in Banner Elk. The mountains in these areas are gorgeous and I found myself regularly looking over to try and catch a glimpse of landscape. This also became a nice distraction to keep me from realizing how much I was suffering. If I ever had dreams of being a climber, those mountains crushed them there that day.
After a much needed rest stop and refueling in the small town of Banner Elk, we were on our way for another climb up Grandfather Mountain. We climbed this mountain yesterday, only from a different direction but ended up taking the same descent. It was nice to see some familiar territory and I felt more comfortable pushing the descents since I could remember the road from being there less than 24 hours earlier. Enjoying scenery and trying to keep up with my team mates, the miles ticked away, although I was noticing with a little more effort than a few hours earlier, even while going downhill. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was beginning to bonk. I have only bonked once before and that was during my first century. I knew that feeling and I didn’t want to live through it again so I took steps to make sure I was well hydrated and ate well enough. During this day I would go through 4 large bottles of Gatorade, one PowerBar and 3 Gu’s, but this apparently wasn’t going to be enough for me. It wasn’t until we made another stop to fix a flat tire that it caught up with me. I knew at that moment I had better start rolling home or I might never make it. We were at mile marker 50 and although there were only supposed to be 4 more to go, I knew we were at least 10 miles away with several more small climbs. Boy was I glad I wasn’t on the long route. Once rolling again, we found ourselves back to the cabin in another 45 minutes and having to tackle the 15% grade (+/-) back up to the cabin. I was done, I ended up getting off the bike and walking up, no way was I going to be riding up this one today. Along the walk, Dr. Carl came up and gave me a hand with the bike. Big thanks goes out to Carl because without him looking out for those first few moments back at the cabin, it would have taken me much longer to recover, possibly putting into jeopardy the riding for the next day or two. After several small helpings of pasta, I was feeling back to normal and looking forward to what the day had in store for tomorrow.
Oh, almost forgot about Crickets, Ants and Lobster. Ants were what had invaded our kitchen in the morning, Crickets were what had invaded the rest of the house, and Lobster is what I looked like from my sunburn after neglecting the sunscreen.
brian
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