non-bike

Andrea

Morning on the Ouachita Trail

Yesterday afternoon, I headed over to the Mt. Ida area and camped out for the night. Along the way, I stopped at The Ride bike shop in Conway. I was going to buy a new cassette because I’d somehow bent a cog on mine while riding fire roads the day before. When I got there, instead of just selling a new cassette, they took a look at mine, then went at it with a screw driver… lo and behold, he was able to fix it! Woohoo! Gotta love good customer service- if you’re ever in the Conway area and need something, check them out.

Anyway- After a chilly night in the tent, I woke up in the morning and went to a local cafe for breakfast (French toast!) then headed out with Todd to the Brushy Mountain trailhead near the Ouachita trail. We took forest roads to the beginning of the singletrack for the upcoming Ouachita Challenge race. Brushy is tough- I didn’t get off my granny gear most of the time because the trail was either straight up or straight down.

Once we arrived back at his truck, Todd gave me instructions about how to get to the next couple of sections of trail (he wasn’t feeling well). So, I headed off to Blowout Mountain on my own. After the initial climb, it’s not that bad- there are a couple of hike-a-bike sections where the trail is piled over with rocks (see photos below), but it’s otherwise just a lot of picking your way around a lot of medium-sized rocks.

The last mountain was Cleabit (I could be mispelling that… but the name reminds me of the word “fleabit” so I’m sticking with it!) It starts with a steeeeeeeeeep climb. OW! It also had a random rockpile (the photo below with the blue blazes on the trees). I paced myself and was still feeling great by the time I reached the trailhead where Todd was waiting to pick me up. Great day! I’m feeling confident about doing well in the OC race.

Andrea

Weekend Redux

Sunday, Matt and I headed west for a quick trip to the Womble trail. I never, ever get tired of overlooks…

overlook

On the way home, we passed a house trailer off to the side of I-40. It had smoke coming out of the windows… I called 911, then we turned around to make sure that if the FD didn’t show up, that no one was inside screaming for help. Luckily, by the time we were close, we saw firetrucks…

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Hopefully, everyone was OK…

Now that the results are posted, I’m pissed at myself. Not that it would have made a difference in placing (even though RR had a flat on the last lap, she was far enough ahead that I would not have caught her), but I would have been a strong 2nd instead of a lucky one. Looking at lap times, I would have made the 1:17 time cutoff. My downfall was A) a lack of HTFU, and B) a lack of conditioning. Two things that I’m hard on myself about. It should have been a non-issue. I should not have questioned it. There should never have been a thought in my mind about NOT going for it. Damn.

Andrea

Consolation Prize!

I ended up holding on to the TBRA CX BAR points lead!!! WOOt! I call it my consolation prize since, barring mechanical difficulty, it’s pretty safe to say that Kim F. can give me a sound beating in a cyclocross race

So, Congrats to Kim for winning the CX 1/2/3 championship race over the weekend! I wasn’t about to drive 8 hours though the winter weather in hopes that her bike would somehow explode during the race, so I was a little worried that Kim Bishop, who was not too far behind me in points, would pass me by since I was missing the last two points races of the season.

Full results: TBRA CX 1/2/3 series standings

Andrea

Roadtrip Rebound

So my between-semester winter break was officially over yesterday (faculty meeting), and classes start tomorrow.

I’m having a hard time coping.

After several road trips, random adventures, meeting new people, going new places, etc, now that I’m back to “normal” life, everything seems really, really boring, and it’s a little depressing.

*sigh*

At least Southern Cross got rescheduled- it’s going to be on the 23rd… which is good to combat the boredom, but is also going to keep me from going to the TBRA CX race on that day. Right now, I’m ahead in points for the series, but the gal in 2nd is going to be getting really, really close now if I don’t make an 8 farking hour trip to Johnson City for the last two races of the season.

On the plus side, I’ve made a tentative plan for my 2010 race season. It’s shaping up nicely, and it looks like I’ll be able to strike a good balance between mountain and road events. I wish summer would just hurry up & get here.

Andrea

Eastbound Days 3 and 4- Unicoi Gap and Back

Not long after I took those pretty photos Friday morning, a couple of hikers (Kyle and Bart) showed up at the hostel (after hitching rides from the Appalachian Trail a few miles away). They’d parked their car at Unicoi Gap and been shuttled to the Southern end of the AT and had planned on hiking back to the car. However, when the snow and ice came through, their progress had slowed, and they weren’t going to make it back to their car in time for Bart to catch his flight home on Sunday.

Then I got the call- Eddie and Namrita (the Southern Cross race promoters) had tried to go to the race venue (Camp Wahsega) and were unable to because of the ice on the roads. They were going to have to postpone the race.

By then, it was a little after noon. I decided that I’d stick around the hostel for another night and head to Chattanooga for some “normal” CX racing Saturday morning since the Big One was called off. That evening, bored with sitting around the hostel watching CSI reruns, Bart, Kyle, and myself decided to head to town for dinner. I found out that they’d called a taxi service to pick them up in the morning and drive them to their car about 45 minutes up the road… to the tune of eighty bucks! Always up for a little adventure, I offered to drive them up there for the low, low cost of dinner and a tank of gas.

The scenery out to Unicoi was gorgeous! At the parking area, the trees on the hillside were still frozen in snow and ice, and the sunlight coming through them was amazing.

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Kyle, Bart, and their car
Kyle, Bart, and their car

After dropping them off, I headed back to Chattanooga. Along the way, I drove past Brasstown Bald, site of many an exciting race finish during Tour of Georgia. Eventually, I made it to Booker T. Washington State park- just in time to change and head out for a quick lap around the MTB trails to loosen up my legs after a couple of days of doing nothing. Luckily, the race promoter had reserved the bunkhouses at the park for anyone who wanted to stay there, so I had some dinner & bedded down.

Today (Sunday), I’m hoping to finish my road trip off with a decent CX race.

Andrea

Good Morning…

Looks like we got around 2 inches yesterday/last night. The roads are pretty covered, so I’m sticking around the hostel for a while (especially since the driveway here is really steep, really slick, and has a ravine on the other side of the road…

Back porch of the hostel
Back porch of the hostel
The chickens have a heat lamp in their coop, but they're huddled together outside
The chickens have a heat lamp in their coop, but they're huddled together outside
The toaster's first snow
The toaster's first snow

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The driveway- if you look close, you can see where I inadvertantly slid a few times walking down
The driveway- if you look close, you can see where I inadvertantly slid a few times walking down

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Andrea

Turbo Dog

…got a new collar today. (BTW- she’s a Belgian Malinois- not a German Shepard)

I figured I needed to give her something to show my appreciation to her loyal guard-dog service since she will be keeping me company over in Mountain View for the next few days.

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Andrea

Honeymoon = Over

Literally- yesterday morning, I woke up feeling achy & crappy. This quickly progressed into chills/fever/upset stomach/full-body aches. I laid around the cabin all day in a fevered stupor. We decided to make the trip home… which is on my top 5 list of “worst 3 hour period” of my life ever. The muscle aches were horrible.

This morning, I’m feeling slightly better. The upset stomach seems to be gone, so I was able to eat a little bit and take some asprin, which knocked the fever and aches down a little. Now I’m just stuck in the house. The weather is supposed to be really nice today, which sucks, but I guess I should follow the advice I gave my students all semester to keep myself quarintined until I’ve been without a fever for 24 hours. Blah.