Monday, July 24, 2006

Jay Prep

The foundation is layed for an explosive race. Just finished my first ever twenty hour training week:

three hour solo MTB
four commuting days in steamy 90+ degree heat
an eight hour mtb epic on Sunday.
+/- 250 miles in seven days (180 road, 70 mountain)...now starts the taper.

Sunday's ride was perfect. Relaxed pace was the secret to our success in cleaning nearly every trail on the north shore...next time we'll start at Red Dot and get'em all!

Kerry, Harry, Jeff and I set out at 9 am to reach a cooler full of food, water and a six pack of beers that Jeff and I had ditched in the woods in Gloucester. The weather wasn't the best at 100% humidity but low(ish) temps in the 70's made conditions comfortable.

Most memorable parts of the epic for me:
Being surprised by Harry's arrival for the ride...(he just finished the A-T two weeks ago and hasn't been on a mountain bike since October!)
Asking the group (after 6 Hours on single track) if they'd rather hit the road for an hour spin home...and Kerry asking if we could ride Ancient line again!...so we did.
No camera on the trail to capture the action because of rain...but Jeff's phone somehow lived to dial another day after he forgot it was in his jersey pocket durring the entire ride...Downpour and all.
Post epic cook-out where Jeff and I ate One Pound Burgers and watched Floyd bring home Yellow in the individual TT in the tour de France!

An Email from Kerry describing her favorite moments:
Highlights: lunch, of course..Harry crawling up side of rock...standing at ledge near teeter-totter looking down...watching you riding over those ramps..pouring rain on pipeline..ancient line X2...all the mushrooms and moss..seeing the couple without helmets to mention a few.

good stuff..thanks for the ride.

5 comments:

van den kombs said...

Next time we need to add red dot (how many miles is that trail ?)& dogtown. Thanks again for leading us !!

Andy, R&D said...

red dot = 1 additional hour

Dogtown = 3 hour additional hours.

That'd be a 12 hour ride...might need to stash dinner in the woods...better yet, stop at a resturant.

van den kombs said...

Heard you can work a camp stove as long as we keep you away from the bottle of white fuel...

If I work on my speed (and it was dry) we could easily get back in under 10 hrs.

alexdolpp said...

The Jay racemlooks like a sweet course. But 10 aid-stations seems a little bit over the top... so many aid stations only make sense if the serve beer, you could get totally wasted!

Good luck

Andy, R&D said...

yeah I agree..but this is more than just a mountain bike race..it's also a three day event for some. Starting Friday with a 26 mile paddle and Saturday, a 30 mile mountain marathon...The challengers will be riding as if they were drunk by the end of it I'm sure.

The sponsering beer is Michelob Ultra...so much like water they probably could serve it at the aid stations.