I left out around 7:30 on Saturday with some friends to head over to the Ozarks for some climbing. After getting lunch in Russellville, we drove to the little town of Paris, where we parked and bundled up to climb Mt. Magazine. We made the mistake of parking very close to the start of the north side of the climb, so we ended up hitting a nice 7% grade about 3 minutes after pulling out of the parking lot. The climb on the way out was challenging, but it was nice since it alternated between climbs and flat or slightly downhill reprieves. We took a break at the top- probably not a good idea, because it was colder, windy, and we had to make the decent on the other side.

I need to work on my descending- I tend to be a bit too cautious :) Of course, it didn’t help that there was random sand on the road, and my hands froze in my sweaty gloves and then started to lose feeling and circulation. We had to stop again at a gas station in Havana so I could run them under some warm water, which painfully brought the feeling back (my nail beds and fingertips are still sore from the episode).
The mapmyride.com image of the route:

Sunday, we decided to sleep in and wait for the weather to warm up a little. Around 10:30, we packed up and headed to Petit Jean State Park. Petit Jean is smaller, but the climb up is steeper than Magazine in several sections. We had planned to ride out of the park and make a 36 mile loop that finished with a climb up the mountain, but the roads that I’d originally found on a Google map seemed to not exist once we were on the mountain! Instead, we warmed up with a mountaintop loop on a packed dirt road (including some very nice views) before descending, riding out about 10 miles, then riding back for the climb. I rode the climb as hard as I possibly could and finished at the top with the best sprint I could muster (all of 26mph). I was surprised that I felt so good after Saturday’s outing.

Here’s what Ryan’s Polar download looked like (the brown part is elevation):

All in all, it was a good weekend. I feel like I did pretty well considering I’m more of a brick house than a 110 pound climber :) It was also only the 3rd (and 4th and 5th) time to climb a mountain (1st was the Joe Martin TT and 2nd was the Chattanooga River Gorge race). Now, I just have to recover a bit and get ready for the Crosswinds Classic next weekend…