Unplanned century

Jim came by the house at 6AM on Sunday. We wanted to get some uber hill climbs. Jim wanted to do 40th street and Richburg Road. We headed towards the university. We wove around the streets of the neighbor hoods until we reached 40th street – these were big rolling hills. We made it up the hills until we arrived at Richburg Road. We hung a left and went east – I think I topped out in the high thirties going down this hill. We did a short loop at 28th street and went back up the long grade that we had just come down. We had a good series of climbs. We made it back to the trace and headed west. I wanted to go north on Epley Road and turn around at highway 42 – these were also good rolling hills. As we neared Epley Jim was not feeling well. We had 30 miles in the saddle and Jim was going to call it a day. I continued and did the Epley hills and then went further west past Sumrall to the Munn Road hills. All in all I got 68 miles on Sunday morning. Talking later with Jim he ended up getting a little better than 50 miles – not a bad day.

Back at the house I did a quick change and decided to grab a brick. I thought about running for maybe an hour and a half or possibly two hours. I had a frozen 32 oz bottle of water in my hands to keep cool. I started to feel light headed after only a mile. My math was not so good. I pushed on and realized that I had not eaten enough that morning. Last week I ate 11 pop tarts – this week only 3 gels. I turned around at Clyde Station and headed home. The frozen bottle had melted in the 38 minute run – I was hot.

I made myself a big lunch and within an hour I was feeling much better. Disappointed in my run I still had time to jump on the Sunday group ride. I changed clothes again and headed towards the trail head. There was a large group and went out to Sumrall. On the way it started to rain – no one was expecting this. It has only rained once in the last 4 – 6 weeks – we are in a drought. As luck would have it – it has now rained twice and I have been on the bike both times. I guess that just means I have been on the bike a lot. The group ride split and there were only 5 of us willing to continue. We decided to do Munn Road – that would be twice in one day for me. It was still raining lightly as we left the trace. As we turned onto Munn Road Todd – the helicopter pilot for the hospital went down. I was right behind him and swerved just in time to miss him. Luckily he did not hit any joints and just had a big road rash cherry on his hip. A quick once over on the bike and he was rolling again. I have had this thought rolling through my mind – “We all have bad things happen to us – it is how you react to them that matters”. Todd did a good job.

For the day I ended up with 108 miles on the bike and 4.5 miles on the run. I was tired but nothing was sore and I was not any worse for the wear.

Monday I let the legs rest and just hit the pool for some lap time. I ended up with 12 x 250 yards on 4:15 – for 3000 yards total. The swim was good but I was tired the rest of the day.

After work Jodie and I went to the book signing for Tony. We also ran into Becky from the pinebelt pacers. It was fun to talk with Tony and get a copy of the book. As a bonus the libraries ‘food club’ was meeting and they made all kinds of pancakes – oatmeal, buttermilk, Johnny cakes plus desserts. Good times.