{"id":4550,"date":"2012-07-28T13:55:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-28T19:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/?p=4550"},"modified":"2012-07-28T13:55:08","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T19:55:08","slug":"preparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/?p=4550","title":{"rendered":"Preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While I&#8217;ve been anxiously awaiting my trip west for Pierre&#8217;s Hole and the Breck Epic, I realized at about 4pm on Friday that I&#8217;m leaving Monday morning. Suddenly, it&#8217;s time to taper training and start packing. I also came to the realization that the Element is f***ing filthy on the inside, so I&#8217;m gonna hit it with some upholstery cleaner and armor-all at some point this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The weather in Memphis is brutally hot, humid, and polluted this year. I&#8217;m not one to complain about the heat, but physically, I can&#8217;t deny the fact that I&#8217;ve felt the sucking of all energy from my lungs and legs during the hotter rides. So, I&#8217;ve spent a good bit of time either grinding out miserably hot endurance miles on the road or doing intervals on the trainer. All the while, I&#8217;m watching reports from facebook friends of pristine singletrack, mountains, and blue skies absent of any of the grey haze that settles in on our worst days.<\/p>\n<p>Amanda Carey has been doing intervals here:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/carey.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4551\" title=\"carey\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/carey-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/carey-224x300.jpg 224w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/carey.jpg 717w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Vicky Barclay? She&#8217;s somewhere where there&#8217;s mountains. And a pool.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/barclay.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4552\" title=\"barclay\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/barclay-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/barclay-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/barclay-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/barclay.jpg 403w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cheryl Sorenson is a New Englander, so her rock gardens don&#8217;t turn into a summer jungle like the ones I frequent in Arkansas.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/sorenson.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4553\" title=\"sorenson\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/sorenson-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/sorenson-225x300.jpg 225w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/sorenson.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I once heard a story that in some far off European country, the professional cyclists would, in the winter time, ride a trainer for hours a day, with nothing to listen to other than their breathing and nothing to look at except for a bare brick wall in front of them. The idea is that not only did they have strong legs, but also a hard mind.<\/p>\n<p>The last few weeks, for me, have been an exercise in the same spirit.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5543.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4554\" title=\"DSC_5543\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5543-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5543-300x199.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5543.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5549.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4555\" title=\"DSC_5549\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5549-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5549-199x300.jpg 199w, http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_5549.jpg 510w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So all of you can have your mountains, blue skies, and swimming pools. I&#8217;ve been training Memphis-style, and I don&#8217;t feel like I&#8217;ve missed out on anything.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While I&#8217;ve been anxiously awaiting my trip west for Pierre&#8217;s Hole and the Breck Epic, I realized at about 4pm on Friday that I&#8217;m leaving Monday morning. Suddenly, it&#8217;s time to taper training and start packing. I also came to the realization that the Element is f***ing filthy on the inside, so I&#8217;m gonna hit&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Uq-1bo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4556,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions\/4556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brickhouseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}