A Few Weeks Under the Radar

Yes, SR-71 is back into stealth mode, for just a short bit. After the RBP #3 sprint, it was back to business as usual. The day after, Warship, Treach, Caroline, Mikey and I went on a LSD run around River Oaks. Finished up with about 10 miles. Monday I went on an easy 20 mile bike ride around the fruit loop, HART training on Tue and then navigation training at a course designed by B&R concepts. I didn't go to Thursday training because I had to attend an ASME Awards Dinner. I hadn't been to one of these in a while, so it was interesting--they did keep the speeches to a minimum, so that made it bareable! The B&R course was a tough course as usual, but well thought out. I stumbled early as I think I went down the wrong ditch for CP1. After 30mins, I just bailed on it and retooled my strategy. I ended up getting 7 out of 10, about 15mins over the 3hr time limit. In fact, almost everyone was overdue. It was extra-tough since it was a night nav. Despite all that, I had fun dusting off the cobwebs (figuratively and literally). It ended up being about 12miles, round trip.

A couple of days later we went over to Huntsville for some trail work. We started off with a 10 mile trail run. It was nice to hit this park since I haven't been there in a LONG time and they've done a lot of work in the meantime--glad to see that my tax dollars are going to the parks after all! It was another humid day, so I decided to keep the pace manageable. After the run, we hopped on our bikes. I didn't want to push it on this loop either, but Flo certainly wanted to push the pace. I marked him for a while, but decided to just keep it sane for the rest of the ride. I certainly needed to do a lot more trail work--this is the most technical ride I've done probably a couple of months...and its not even that technical of a course! Anyway, it ended up being a good 4hr outing. I was going to finish off the day with a little navigation at WG Jones, but our lunch spilled over to most of the afternoon and I didn't feel like doing another night nav by myself.

The next week was pretty much the same: monday was the fruit loop, but this time it was a lot more exciting as I was able to hop on a disciplined train of 3 guys. I asked to get on and the guy said "of course!" He also told me that they were doing short pulls, which I wanted to do anyways--it meant we could go faster as a group. It started off cordial, as we all pulled for about half a mile, going at about 23mph pace. Then, I think they were about the end their training session as out of nowhere the Bike Lane dude went for a flyer! One guy had already dropped the loop before because we were pushing the pace up to 24mph and the 2nd, dressed in a skinsuit, looked as if he was watching to see what I would do--he seemed to be the teacher of the 3-person group. I had no choice but to give chase--I was at 30mph at the top of the bridging. Yes, guys, I do remember what happened about a year ago, so I did keep it safe at the chicanes. I bridged and the teacher was on my wheel as well. I pulled for only a brief moment as I was trying to recover, then both of them went 24mph on their pulls. But I was right--as they finished their pulls, they peeled off and had enough. That was only an hour's ride for me, so I kept going for another half hour. I felt good that day on the bike.

Tue and Thurs were HART training (one hills, one bricks) and I did a speed workout on Wed. I made sure to make these workouts count as Friday night we were having a going away party for Ross. We made it a pirate-themed party with cajun overtones (because Caroline was hosting, of course) and it went off great! Throughout the night, we made Ross put on an additional article of pirate clothing and then we put him through a quiz where he had to "walk the plank" if he missed it. Hilarious! We will certainly miss him, but at least we have an adventure racing connection in San Antonio now! After a day of recovery on Sat, we went for our usual LSD run on Sunday. Mikey and I went for 14 miles and Caroline, Treach, and Warship went for about 11. Another hot and humid day...man, I can't wait for fall!

Whew, okay I'm caught up again. As for adventure racing, we had 3 teams at Berryman this weekend: MOAT, HART/www.texasdare.com, and HART/www.houstonadventureracing.com. Checkpointtracker has been spotty at late, so I'm not sure how the finish went yet, although I do know one of our teams had to drop out. Hopefully they provide updates soon! Speaking of updates, still no word on location for Primal Quest yet...regardless, #81 HART/Hammer Nutrition is chomping at the bit!