Urban Adventures- The Nutbush Highway

To be totally cliche, but since my last post, I’ve felt like an enormous weight has lifted off of me, both physically and mentally.

Just so I could slip MMA into another weekend post, I decided to go down to Southaven on Saturday morning to a half-day Jiu Jitsu seminar. It was highly informative. I learned some very useful techniques, though I was slightly disappointed that there was no rolling (think “live practice”) afterwards. I was hoping for it mostly because one of the women there was a blue belt who looked to be in my weight class (me, being a white belt in the 140-45 range). No idea what I’m talking about? Click here: Jiu Jitsu Ranking

I didn’t think I’d feel like riding after the seminar, so I woke up early and did Tabata intervals on the trainer before I left. That was a first… probably not a last. Some of you may be thinking, “WTF are you doing with all this intensity in the Winter?” It initially started as just grasping at straws to maintain some sort of fitness while the trails were wet and I didn’t feel like I could tolerate road riding as I have in the past. That still holds somewhat true, though a much more important purpose is layered on top- I need to get my FTP up to prepare for the initial throes of altitude acclimatization come end of March. I don’t think that I’ll be short on long base mile rides once I’m at 92Fifty, so I’m not too concerned with loading up on those for now.

That doesn’t mean I’m not up for long adventures if the opportunity arises. Sunday, Matt and I decided to continue our exploration of what I’ve dubbed “The Nutbush Highway.” Other than exploring new stuff in the middle of Memphis, there’s not much story to tell, so I just took photos.

On the way out:

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At the western “end” of our adventure, we found a dilapidated bridge and a parallel 4-wheeler track through the creek that you could see continuing on in the woods ahead. However, the creek wasn’t really cross-able (it’s an inner-city drainage… you DON’T wade in that), so we just played around on the bridge before turning back.

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Getting up there was a bit of a climb. Getting down was a little more intimidating

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I made it, though

 

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We took side roads back to the more familiar Wolf River Trails, where we found that someone had cut roots out of all two of the “technical” sections of trail (photo credit, Jim Morgan).

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It’s probably the same jackass that thinks that “fixing” a mudhole means that you pile arm-sized sticks into the middle of it. Facepalm x Infinity

With a quick excursion east towards Grey’s Creek, our ride ended up at about 4 hours long (not including the bridge-playground stop). With the weather being as nice as it’s going to be this afternoon, it looks like we should at least be able to match that again today.