Good times!
I packed up Thursday morning and headed to Bikes Plus to pick Jens up from getting some work done. It took a little longer than expected, so I ended up not getting to Lake Sylvia until around 2:00. I picked a quiet-looking spot and set up camp, changed, and headed out for a short ride. It was nice- I rode a familiar loop that included some rocky goat-trail type roads and a few long climbs/descents. I saw a black bear running through the woods. That was pretty sweet.
When I arrived back a little less than 2 hours later, no fewer than 20 people had moved in to the two sites next to me. I have no idea how many families it was, but there were 6 tents, 4 dogs, 3 vehicles (one being a loud lifted truck), and half the occupants were children ranging in age from ~1-17. Their tents had overflowed their campsites into the area just behind mine (three teenagers were setting one up no less than 10 feet behind my tent). One woman had two volumes to her voice- talk loud and yell until her voice cracked. They drove the very loud truck any time they needed to move more than one person to another area of the campgrounds- they’d load up the back and drive to the bathroom, periodically stepping on the accelerator and gunning the motor. The bathroom was about 100 feet away from their campsite if they’d take the walking trail through the open wooded area. Luckily, the camp host was really nice- he came over as soon as he saw me ride in and helped me move my tent to the other side of the campgrounds into the “primitive” camping area. He had his hands full keeping those folks in line the entire time I was there.
Friday, I packed up early and headed to Story, Arkasas to meet up with Todd Henne. He gave me the introductory tour to the north end of the Womble trail. It kicked my butt so hard that I was wiped out in 20 miles. I know it’s not toally accurate (always on the over-estimation side), but my Garmin 205 said that the elevation gain was just over 6600 feet. Eek! Even if it was just half of that, it’s a good bit of gain for a short ride (by contrast, the entire 50 mile loop for next weekend’s Fool’s Gold race is estimated to be ~6700 feet total gain). Makes me feel a little bit better about the upcoming race…
Saturday morning I went to a short track race (Big Ballin’ Dirt Track Classic) at Burns Park (Little Rock). Short track racing is pretty freakin’ sweet. It’s kinda like cyclocross, criteriums, and XC races all rolled in to one. My race was 30 minutes plus a lap. The only other woman that showed up was riding a single speed… the course didn’t have much elevation change, and was pretty twisty, so I knew that it wouldn’t put her at much of a disadvantage (especially since her bike was about 10 pounds lighter than mine, and a rigid frame rather than full suspension).
We lined up with the category 2/3 men. I figured I should go all out for the holeshot. I did, and it paid off. I settled in behind two men for about 20 minutes until a prime was called, at which point, they dropped me. Luckily, I’d held on to a good lead and finished the last few laps up as best I could. First woman and third overall (against a few guys!) I won a sweet Giro helmet!
After the race, I headed back to camp, rode a little more (just up the FR132 climb and back) then showered, struck camp, and headed back to Memphis. Last night, sleep didn’t come easy. It was too quiet after being in the company of countless noise-making insects and amphibions. I also could feel chiggers crawling all over me (at least, in my head… I don’t think they were actually there) as well as some poison ivy emerging on my left ankle. I got up and rode 70 miles this morning. My legs were pretty torched from the weekend, but I did manage a few threshold intervals once we were with the group. Afterwards, I was beat. Ryan and I got some lunch and went to Lowe’s… I fell asleep in the car on the way to Lowe’s. I guess that’s how you know that it was a good weekend!