Weekend updates

Well weigh in for the week is 244lbs a loss of 2lbs which after some of the eating I am happy with. Coupled with this I have officially broke one of my goals which was to get out of the 40's for pant size. This message is brought to you today by a Steve in a pair of size 38 Jeans (courtesy of Old Navy who parted with them for a whopping 4 dollars after tax *LOL*) so this is officially a Red, Green and Blue letter week.

This weekend Jen and I headed off with the new tent and bikes to Montgomery Bell State Park. The goal was to see how well the new tent would cope with both of us in it and to take in some trails we had been told were really good for biking.

I was really surprised when it comes to the new tent Jen picked up. It looks small, it is small but it did fit both of us in it. The fact that we both slept about 8 hours ok wise is a testament to either us being tired or it being comfortable *LOL*. The major issue we think was using my CPAP in the tent as it created condensation in the tent and everything started getting damp. Also by the time 6am hit I was getting sore and could not stay in the tent any longer. I crawled out got dressed and dozed in the jeep till the sun came up and I could start a fire.

The funnest part of this weekend does have to go to the mountain biking. We had a blast (the whole weekend, camping, cooking out and biking was brilliant - Monty Bell campground is perfectly situated). On the Saturday after we set up we did the red route of the trails (see image below).

Image copied from Montgomery Bell trail pdf. All copyright the State of TN

Sunday we decided to do a longer route before heading home. Knowing that there was a downed tree towards the end of the trails we decided to do a route in reverse. We headed off down the blue route (intermediate trail) and rode that till we hit "4 Points Junction" on the map. From there we rode a little of the red trail till it hit marker 6 of the white trail and headed down that. This consisted of what is classed as the white pine trail and the storm track and of the 3 trails we had been on I think this was the coolest. We were unsure how long the rabbit run (white) was towards the end so we omitted it and returned back to the trail head and civilization. Totals for the weekend are a guess, but I think it is about 2 miles on Saturday and about 8 or 9 on the Sunday.

One good point is that we met a guy as we were packing the bikes up who we gave a copy of the map to and who told us about another trail near Columbia so we may be heading there to try it. Its a loop of 8 miles and starts at easy and builds up.

Another Red Letter Day

Why you ask is it a red letter day, *grin* because I made Reggie tell me he hated me on our bike ride tonight. Ahhh definite good day.

Link to route

I felt good through the whole ride and we did a few sprints while we were riding. Stats for the Ride are as follows:

• Trip Distance 20.55 miles
• Time Taken: 1 hr 16 mins 44 secs
• Ave Speed: 16.07 mph
• Ave Cadence: 68 rpm
• Max speed: 29.38 mph

Well its late and I'm tired. This weekend is a trip to rock island state park with the parents. WE are however taking the bikes to go for a ride yeee haw. (new location is always good)

A wheely Good time

Today Jen, Reggie and I completed a major milestone in our cycling lives. I think it is not just a red letter day but a neon, blinking red letter day. Today we accomplished riding 50 miles in one ride. We did this not on the easy, pretty flat Clarksville Metric century route but took a route that Jen picked for us. Our location you ask, none other that Land between the lakes. We cycled from the south welcome station, up past the Golden Pond welcome station (to hit approx 25 miles) and then back to Golden Pond for a 30 minute break (good time to do it as a flash thunder storm hit us just as we returned to the welcome center). After our break we then proceeded to return back the route we had just came. To explain this route is simply and perfectly summed up by Jen. Just before we started the route she talked about how she had seen a cyclist doing the route a while back and thought to herself that he was crazy and she would never think about doing this road *LOL*. Yup guess what she picked this road for today *LOL*. All joking aside, this was a difficult route but I feel the better for it, especially after eating yummy Mexican, a sonic blast and getting two hours sleep when we returned home *grin*. It was a route that challenged both our mental and physical endurance. Each hill we took we thought only of it and of reaching the top. At about the 40-45 mile mark when exhaustion had set in each of the hills encountered was a personal battle and felt all the sweeter when accomplished. Reggie reached the end and drove back for us thinking we were 5 or so miles back. He found us on the last hill, half way up, drained but refusing to give up, not one hill did any of us walk up. On the last couple of hills if anyone had to stop, they stopped, rested for a minute then got back on the bike to get to the top.

It will be a few days before I go near the bike. I hurt and I realised that as well as the numbness I encounter on hard rides my saddle is just damned uncomfortable. One of my major problems because of it on this ride was I had to stop, get off and rest at times because my rear just hurt so much.

Linky to Gmaps

AS you will notice the route was so long I had to split the elevation graph *LOL*

Stats for the ride:

• Trip Distance : 50.46 Miles
• Trip Time: 4 hrs 9 mins 30 secs
• Ave Speed: 12.05 mph
• Ave Cadence: 60 rpm
• Max Speed: 39.35 mph

Time to go relax again.

s.