Training Camp ’09

Andrea

Training Camp ’09- Days 5 and 6

Yes, this is a combo post- yesterday I rode, packed, and skeedadled out of Mountain View so I could get back home to Memphis before bedtime, and had a bunch of stuff to do once I got home, so I didn’t feel like updating.

The sunrise/blue moonset was a really nice way to start the day:

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The ride was just a simple loop in the National Forest. I started out at Blanchard Springs on my MTB and headed up the mountain to Green Mountain Road. From there, I rode up a while then dropped back in to Gunnar Pool . It’s a gorgeous campground with a small lake, dam, and waterfall, but I didn’t hang around for photos because it was pretty dang cold. You’ll just have to take my word for it ;)

From there, I turned around & climbed back up to Green Mountain, tracked east, then headed south on Sandy Flat, which drops down quickly to a creek crossing then climbs again back to Green Mountain road. The entire loop was less than 30 miles and took about 2.5 hours. Each of the 3 climbs was between 500 and 600 ft of elevation gain, and I rode the rolling sections between climbs at a decent tempo, so I was happy to get back to the decent back to Blanchard.

Once I was back, I figured I’d take some photos of Sylamore Creek…

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Today, Ryan and I day-tripped the Columbia #1 cyclocross race. It was cold and reletively uneventful. Kim Bishop showed up and gave me a run for my money. My legs were wondering WTF I was doing. Not only did I put in nearly 20 hours worth of riding/hiking this week (my TSB is -38 right now for all you Training Peaks geeks), I haven’t done any CX-type efforts since the Outdoors race several weeks ago. Needless to say, I wasn’t really thinking about the usual cat 3 boy-beatdown that I liked to administer earlier in the season.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, so we’ll probably venture out to the WRT for a couple of hours on the mountain bikes.

Random thought of the evening: Barleywine tastes like neither barley nor wine. Discuss.

Andrea

Training Camp ’09- Day 4

The weather has been as damp as possible without actually raining, so the trails are staying soggy. I loaded a 50ish mile route into my Garmin and headed out on the Gravel Killer.

Everything was good until I got up the longest climb on Roasting Ear Road (no idea why it’s called that!) I heard a dog barking and saw on in a pen. Luckily, my instincts told me not to let my guard down. I picked up my pace immediately before I caught sight of a large, tan pitbull charging out of the yard of the house. CRAP! I floored it and made it past the next house just fast enough for the two large, shaggy dogs to join the chase with the pit. This was the first of seven dog chases.

Here’s a map of my ride- I put a red dot on the approximate places where I encountered loose dogs.

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The dogs weren’t the only unpleasent thing on the route. The gravel road south of Highway 66 was freshly graded. In theory, this sounds good, but in actuality, the grading process turns over new rocks and loosens the dirt, so it’s thick to get through and really, really rough. The eastern part of 66 heading in to Mt. View acted like a traffic funnel, too. As I was turning off into downtown Mt. View, a guy in a truck yelled at me and gave me the finger. So much for Southern hospitality! After getting out of Mountain View, the rest of the ride was pretty nice.

Like my other rides this week, I was feeling good even through the last few miles. I’m a little surprised since I haven’t been training quite as much as I wanted to during the fall. Hopefully the “slow start” will mean that I’m not feeling burnt out before the end of the season next year.

Andrea

Training Camp- Day 3

Last night, even though the radar showed solid blue for several hours, this is what I woke up to this morning…

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I figured I’d take today to head out on the Bald Scrappy Loop (orange trail) and start working on the 4.5 mile section that I adopted (and hike the remaining 3 miles following that). The hardest part of adopting a section of trail is maintaining the corridor- a 3 foot perimeter around the singletrack. It involves cutting any small trees, overhanging branches, and underbrush. It was obvious that most of the trail hadn’t had such care in a while. So, I slowly made my way down the trail with a handsaw, stopping to cut something back or off every 10-50 feet. It took me 4.5 hours (giving me a total hiking time just short of 6 hours).

The inherent nature of trail clearing is both destructive and preservative at the same time. There’s also the beauty and solitude of the woods… it’s very zen-like.

Along the way, I took some photos of the icicles & whatnot…

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My favorite part of the trail is the section along the top of Cedar Scrappy Mountain:

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I dolled up Turbo’s already fabulous collar so that she’d look a little less like a deer or rhinestone-wearing coyote. She’s a wonderful trail companion- most of the time, she trots along a couple of steps behind me. I enjoy the company…

Turbo

Andrea

Training Camp ’09- Day 2

I set out today with the intention to ride a majority of the Syllamo’s Revenge course. I started out by leaving the trailhead and heading up Green Mountain to find Blanchard Road. After taking a couple of wrong turns onto logging roads, I finally got going in the right direction. I wanted to get a feel for the race start, so I actually rode past the yellow trail intersection to the Blanchard campground, turned around, and headed back up the ~3/4 mile climb. This essentially dumps you into the most rocky, technical section of the Jack’s Branch trail. I quickly realized that the ground under the rocks was still wet, which made the rock gardens much more treacherous than usual, because they were either slippery or would shift and slide as I rode over them. The sun-sheltered spots were icy. A couple of times, I fell downhill off of the trail and was only saved by grabbing on to nearby trees.

So, in the interest of NOT falling down a mountain, I changed my plan to ride the remainder of the yellow trail and the red trail. The red trail was full of wildlife- I had a herd of wild hogs run across the trail in front of me, almost ran over a squirrel, scared up a huge gang of turkeys, then finished it all off with some random whitetail deer. The awesome part of the ride is the fact that I felt as strong at mile 30 as I did at mile 3. Looks like this base training stuff is paying off!

Some photos from a scenic spot on the yellow…

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It’s kinda weird to think that exactly a year ago, I was at the Metro training camp learning how to give Coryn Rivera a sprint leadout. Now I’m riding my MTB in preparation to hit the NUE series with guns blazing. I’m not surprised, though.

Andrea

Training Camp ’09- Day 1

I’ve officially dubbed the next couple of weeks as my own personal Training Camp. The plan is to stay in Mountain View until Friday, then head home and race CX over the weekend, then drive out to North Georgia for some more riding before the SouthernX race on the 9th (and Cross-a-nooga on the 10th). Hopefully the only thing that will be similar to last year’s training camp will be that I come out of it a little tougher ;).

Yesterday, I woke up early and drove from Memphis with the sunrise.

Pit Stop!

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Once I arrived, I loaded a 57 mile gravel grinder route into my new Garmin 705 and headed out. The first 3 miles was downhill, followed by ~7 miles of climbing up hwy14 up to Blanchard Springs.

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I decended to Sylamore Creek, then found my way to Blanchard Road, which went straight up the mountain (20+% grade at some points) to intersect Green Mountain Road. From there, I headed north, planning on turning off onto another forest road a few miles away. However, once I got there, it was not quite what I expected…

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You can’t tell by the photos, but the road bed is really rocky and covered in branches/debris. I figured that it wasn’t a wise adventure to take on alone with winter-limited daylight, so I turned around and headed back down Green Mountain Rd. to hwy 5, then back up the mountain to the cabin. It ended up being 30 miles. A really tough 30 miles. I think that I’ll try that route with my MTB next time.

Today, my plan is to ride most of the Syllamo’s Revenge race course. It may be my last chance to hit the trais before the weather goes foul tomorrow and sends me back to the road.