A big weekend o' fun

I'm going to make a jump back up to the present with the blog now. I have a few posts started from the previous couple weeks and a trip earlier in the summer, but I find I'm better at keeping to a schedule if I just need to blog about what happened in the last week, so I'm just going to fill in those past posts randomly when I have time. So be on the lookout for that, and you know, be careful when someone loves you.

Blue Sky and Radar Love

Last weekend was the Tour De Save bike ride in Northfield. The ride was started as the Tour De Nick several years ago in memory of a Northfield rider who committed suicide, and in the last couple years has partnered with the SAVE foundation to help raise money for their organization. I joined a few other EMVC riders on the 100k gravel route.

TDS Gravel Crew

It was a wonderful morning for riding. It was sunny and calm, not too warm and not too humid. We were going at a pretty leisurely pace, which was good since I haven't put a lot of miles on the bike this year. Bruce Anderson joined us for the first few miles, but he was itching to go faster and couldn't find any companions in our group, so he ventured off alone. Paul also branched off partway through, so there were 5 of us that rode the whole route together.

Grinding out the miles

There was plenty of climbing, so once I had a good feel for my bike fitness I decided to make a run at a couple Strava segments along the way. When I did the gravel championships a couple years ago I didn't get credit for the Shady Lane segment, so I really wanted to take another run at that one in particular. It is a 2 mile segment with a good 19% gravel climb near the end. I managed to throw down a good enough time to tie Galen for 2nd place on the segment, but feel like I could be faster.

Gorgeous roads, fun hills, no cars

By the time we got back almost all the food was gone, but there were still some cookies and we had squirreled away a few beers that were waiting for us. I had one against my own better judgement. This was not my final workout of the day, and I knew that beer wouldn't sit all that well for the run I still had to do.

Workout #1 done

Turns out I was kind of right. By the time I got home, changed, and headed out running it was getting pretty hot and steamy out. My goal was to make 13 miles and get a good collection of hills in as well. I achieved both of those goals, and put my hydration vest through a good test run in the process. The pieces are starting to fall into place for my 50 miler next month, but I still feel like I need to get a couple hilly trail runs in to really feel prepared.

Out for some bonus Radar Love

Sunday morning it was back to Afton to join the SCAR training crew for a 50k rollerski (it was actually only 47k). It is a fun ski, meeting in downtown Afton and following a different route than our normal Sunday morning skis. There are also aid stations set up along the course with M&M's and water, both of which were very welcome since I was working on pretty low glycogen stores from the day before. There were a couple young guys on classic skis that set a good comfortable pace so we finished up in just under 3 hours. Afterwards I was actually feeling pretty decent for having put in a 10hr+ weekend.