The afternoon was again riding between rain fronts.
The trail was nice and wet but luckily not too much standing water. Have I mentioned how much I love the ATT?
Here's a bit of an action shot. Proof for my dad that I did play in the rain but did not get my shoes wet (inside joke).
I splurged a bit on dinner Friday night at Ruby Tuesday. Their chicken fingers and fries are nearly irresistible to me. Luckily the fries weren't great so I left several. I did manage to lead off with a huge salad. Props to Ryan for recommending Beer in place of Soda. Blue moon helped keep my soda avoidance streak running. Hops over HFCS. Wonder if the boss would buy that?
Saturday morning the trails were still wet. The rain had stopped but clouds were still plentiful when Rebecca and I set off for our Saturday ride. We opted to for what we call the ATT Southern Loop. For us this goes down the paved section by South Point Crossing, on Fayetteville past Sout Point Mall, picks up the trail at Massey Chapel, and then continues South to New Hill terminus.
We stopped at New Hill to snack on ride food.
The ride back from New Hill was interesting. ~3miles of the ATT south of 40 are paved. The rest is crushed gravel, crushed limestone, or similar softer surface. This surface is great for training. It's 30+ miles round trip of long slow burn with few street crossings. The softer surface usually calls for a bit more energy to sustain the pace. With all the rain we were leaving deep but not damaging tracks. This made for much more work on the bike. Rebecca sustained a heart rate around 150 for most of the ride. I fared better. When we reached Chatham county section with paved and gravel surface I ran a bit of experiment. With Rebecca riding on the pavement and me on the gravel our heartrates were finally similar in the 150's. Turns out Rebecca had been pushing hard all morning. This is a great training ride. It's a bit ambitious for a recovery week. We called it done when we reached home opting to drive to Mellow Mushroom for lunch so we could make other appointments on time. 37 miles mostly over soft terrain. We covered a few errands at Bull City Running and REI to boot. If you need a good running store try Bull City Running. Jason and Kim are great. Kudos to Jason for his recent 2:35 at Boston Marathon. Wow that is cruising, especially with hills.
The 800 calorie house calzone from Mellow Mushroom looked big when it arrived at our table. It didn't feel so big just minutes later. Neither did the double chocolate brownie. I drank water so reasoned with myself to trade the brownie for the phosphoric acid of soda.
Rebecca was done for the day. I wanted more miles to hit a maybe-could-be-I'm-uncommitted-but-toying-with goal. Over lunch I decided a quick spin over to Umstead park sounded great. Form home I set out on backroads winding my way to the Reedy Creek entrance of Umstead. Pushing the pace and getting turned around a few times I arrived without time for the single loop of Umstead I'd hoped for. It was a good ride either way. The low slung evening sun made a pleasant view of Lake Crabtree.
It wasn't really that dark, I was just trying to capture the sun's reflection on the water. The iPhone camera is adequate and convenient. Here's a better view of ambient light and lengthening shadows.
Heading home I forwent the detours of the route out. The thought of getting home is great for negative splits. Now if I could just adopt transition has 'home' for a triathlon. I jammed on the brakes to snap this Durham Co sign and text to Rebecca. It's good to keep loved ones informed of whereabouts. Too bad location tracking is so battery intensive on the iPhone. Maybe the recent fuss about iOS and Android doing automatic location tracking will beget further advances in technology. If the device is grabbing data then at least make it useful.
This beautiful sunset greeted me as I crested the last hill heading toward home. I've seen several of these recently. This hill has a great vantage point for sunsets. Bonus that it's pretty much required pavement for any eastward venture.
Sunday we did a requisite one hour run. Then we biked up the ATT to Durham for Lunch and then over to Duke Gardens. The gardens were hopping with people. On the way home I asked Rebecca to help with a good samaritan activity. On Friday I saw a Kroger grocery cart ditched off the side of the ATT about 1 mile north of Kroger. I thought it would be 'interesting' to escort the cart back to where it belonged. And it would help keep the train clean to boot. I drew quite the looks pedaling along dragging a shopping cart and making rowdy noise. Shopping cart wheels are not built for cycling speeds. Pulling into the Kroger parking lot a mallard hen had little appreciation for my good deed. She waddled out in front me, despite the horrendous noise, and proceeded across the road as if she owned it. Rebecca and I got quite a laugh about the gusto of that little duck. With the cart returned we headed home after a good day out and about.
Settling down on Sunday I've covered 98 miles this weekend for 215 total on the week. Miles hammering, miles sightseeing, miles dragging a shopping card, miles slogging through soft wet gravel. All miles are not created equal. Cycling miles hold a little something for everyone.
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