Blood Sweat and Gears - Tandem Century in the High Country

Life has been unusually busy lately, and that’s saying something, since usually it’s pretty dang busy here in the McApplegate household. J I'll explain why in a few days. 

When last I updated, nearly a month ago, we had just finished the Lumberjack 100 on the mountain bike tandumb.

Life is such a blur right now I had to turn to my twitter feed to remember what we did after that!

June 25, we went north to Valle Crucis, NC (just outside of Boone) to participate in the 100 mile road event called Blood, Sweat and Gears. After a calm relaxing evening in the Barker house, we awoke at sunrise and descended down the mountain to line up with 748 other eager beavers who were ready to tackle 13,000 feet of climbing mountains via bike.

I’ve only done this event one other time, my very first century ever, in 2002. I vaguely remember, at mile 90, feeling certain I could make it another 10 miles without needing more fuel or water. In reality, the ride is 106 miles, the last 10 containing some mean kickers of hills. Needless to say, the last 6 miles in 2002 were the longest 6 miles of my life. I vowed this would not happen to me again!

So we took care of ourselves, riding hard to stay with the main group, but eating and drinking like good little racer types. We never managed to get to the front of the peleton, but hung out at the back of the main pack and punched tickets for the first 60 miles. Once the group blew to smithereens on the super steep and painful Snake Mountain, we spent the rest of the ride enjoying the roads, the good cheer of the many volunteers, getting heckled by many Boone-folk we have come to know over the years, and all in all having a good time. (Although based on the below photo, maybe it was just me having fun?)

Photo by HighSouthCollective

5 hours and 35 minutes after we started, we happily crossed the finish line, covering the last 10 miles or so as quickly as we started. Tired, dusty, and grimy, we were pretty dang happy with the effort. Training seems to be on track for some pesky little 100 miler, which at the time was 1.5 mos away, now just 1 mo away…

And oops, I'm all blogged out for the night. Hopefully it won't take me another month to update again, so much to write about...