Everybody always say's if you want to get better you have to train with people a lot better than you. I have definitely accomplished this over the past two weekends. As you might recall, last weekend I trained with two sub-12 hour Ironmen, which 1 was a Kona-alumni. This weekend, I trained with the most impressive line up of cyclist I could even think about. I should note, that although it was grueling beyond belief - I had a ton of fun.
One guy has climbed on Mt. Ranier, one guy just finished the Cohutta 100, in which Floyd Landis was there and the other guy has done the bike and run on the Leadville 100 UltraMarathon and the Leadville 100 MTB. Interestingly enough, Memphis, TN (voted as the WORST city to ride a bike by Bicycling Magazine) was our common denominator - as we have all lived there at one point in our lives.
I started earlier than the others knocking out a painful 25 minute swim. Painful, not because of the distance, but because of the absolute boredom of swimming by yourself at 7:00 on a Saturday Morning.
I then met up with my fellow cyclist as we started our assault on the prevailing Mountains. I knew everyone was going to be climbing faster than me because they were 1)better cyclist, 2) I think everyone had a smaller lower ring and 3) they were better cyclist. So I started to coast a little bit in the straights in my aero-bars. I received the appropriate amount of harassment for being "aero" so I succumbed to the peer pressure and just gave up. We talked throughout the whole ride, which was great, because they all had awesome stories from canoing down a river in Memphis in December and falling out and almost drowning to being slammed face first into a tree while barreling down a hill mountain biking.
After playing around in the flat's it was time to climb, we soon approached Raccoon Mountain. I had never climbed the eastern side before. It was easier to get to compared to the western side, but the climb was just as grueling as there were no switchbacks. I popped in some caffeinated gel and some gatorade, but I was still bringing up the rear and was left in my fellow riders dust. Fortunately for me, they waited for me on the other side after a fun downhill ride.
I actually did pretty well, for me at least, in the flat sections, from Raccoon Mountain to Lookout Mountain. At one point, I almost felt like I was in a movie, as this area was absolutely gorgeous with the morning dew still on the grass, and the sun peeking over the mountain shedding just enough light onto the respective farms. We took a little break to see some hang-gliders take-off and to catch our breath from sprinting away from some incest, redneck dogs. Then it was Lookout Mountain. Not just Lookout, but the Burkhalter Gap climb of Lookout Mountain. I was again, left in the dust, but they waited at the top. At the top of Lookout were some rollers on a nice loop. Usually, these would be fun to ride on, but to be honest, they were zapping energy from me that I didn't even know I had. It was gorgeous on top of the mountain though.
Usually I'm the fastest guy down the mountain, but not in this group. They AGAIN, left me in the dust (are we noticing a pattern here?), but I had fun. We had a fun ride in to downtown where everybody went home. I threw out an invitation to go running, but I think everyone else was pretty hungry. I think I ate a lot more than everyone else.
When I got home I was excited thinking I was going to get to run with my little girl for the first time, but much to my chagrin she was sleeping and Mom was busy around the house. So I just parked the bike and took off running. My wife looked at me like I was about to die, as she repeated several times: "are you sure you want to go running?" I only ran around 3 miles at a very slow pace, but my heart-rate was still elevated, so I was feeling good about it.
The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with my in-laws eating some great food and having a good time with family.
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