…of climbing, that is. That’s how much I climbed today on my ride. I got this loop in my head yesterday at the Lake and knew that it wouldn’t go away until I rode it. So I did.

For you locals who know the Boone area… I went from Blowing Rock- out 221- down Shull’s Mill- into Vale Crucis- up 194 (one of my favorite climbs around here)- into Banner Elk- up the backside of Beech Mtn- down to 321- up 321- down into Bethel- up George’s Gap- up Mast Gap- back into Vale Crucis- back up Shull’s Mill- thru Blowing Rock to the house.

The weather today was absolutely perfect. Sorry, don’t want to rub it in for all ya’ll off the mountain, but it was absolutely gorgeous. One of the most perfect days that I can remember being up here, actually. The sky was so blue, the few clouds nice and puffy, and the mountains so green. There was pretty much no humidity either. I was nice and hot going uphill, but got a little chilly coming downhill.

The ride was great, except for the fact that once I had crested 194 and was dropping into Banner Elk I noticed that I didn’t have my water bottles with me. Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

So I called Joe and made a detour out 184 to 105 (which added another 1/2 hour or so and more climbing to the ride originally planned) to get my bottles. Yeah, what an idiot. That’s definitely the first time I’ve ever done that. Joe was nice enough to drive them out to me before he went out on his own ride (no, he didn’t want to ride 5 hours with me).

So my loop ended up being longer than expected, but I really didn’t mind. The weather today was so perfect, I couldn’t imagine not spending it on my bike.

I’ve enjoyed the lazy mornings and rolling out whenever… I don’t have to worry about getting out before it gets too hot or anything here.

It’s time to pack up and head down to visit my parents tonight, and I also get to see Sonni again for a bike fit. Tomorrow I get to see my good friend, Deb!

12,000 ft in 76 miles

Today I “slept in” until 7:30am… wow, lame. I didn’t set an alarm last night, and this was going to be the first morning all summer that I didn’t HAVE to wake up at a certain time to go to a scheduled workout. I guess I’m so used to waking up at 5:15 or 6:00 that it isn’t going to get much later than that… oh well.

After a lazy breakfast and some reading, I went out for a nice ride around Boone and Blowing Rock. It brought back so many memories of when I just started riding my bike. Lots of memories chasing Ben everywhere… literally. I’d chase him up climbs, down twisty descents, on flats (the few that are around here). It brought back memories of the Wednesday Night Ride from Magic Cycles (”Wednesday Worlds” we called it). And, it brought back memories of many solo rides by myself… just plugging away up the roads, like I had something to prove.

I love being here. I feel so at home. This place will always be special to me no matter where life takes me. I’ve always been able to “find” myself here, no matter how lost I may feel at the time. It’s really refreshing and helps break up the monotony that you can find yourself in sometimes, without realizing it.

After a short transition run, I’m ready for a shower and some lunch. We’re going to spend the afternoon on Lake James… a good time to get an open water swim in, if I feel like it.

Today I rode with Sonni on an abridged route of Blood, Sweat, and Gears. Neither one of us really wanted to do a 100 mile road ride. And, since we’ve both done this event multiple times, we didn’t have the feeling of “needing to do the whole thing to prove we could do it.” Been there. Done that. Love the ride. Just don’t wanna do the whole thing… but still wanted to get in a solid ride today.

Well, I definitely got a solid ride in with Sonni. That’s always a guarantee. We started before the actual ride took off and just did a steady pace… we were able to catch the riders in Todd and after the back side of Snake Mountain, so that was cool.

Sonni pulled like the entire way, so that was pretty sweet. We even got to ride with Jeremiah for the long stretch up to Tennessee and to George’s Gap. I was so glad when we got to George’s Gap that I didn’t have to make that turn and do that last loop of the ride… holy god… those climbs are brutal that late in the ride, and you’ve already got so much junk in your legs at that point that it is NOT a fun time. Lucky for me, Sonni and I spun right up Mast Gap and back to the car.

I laid out in the creek behind the Mast Store Annex, then got changed so I could watch the century riders come in for a bit. I even ate some Pizza Hut Pizza… yikes! I’m pretty snotty about pizza, and generally will only eat Mellow Mushroom… but for whatever reason the Pizza Hut stuff looked appealing, so I ate it. It was good too. Guess about anything is after a long bike ride though!

Time to take the dogs out for a hike in a bit… they’ve been at the house lounging around all day and need some exercise!

Just arrived to Blowing Rock for a couple weeks of training and relaxing… doing a modified version of Blood, Sweat, and Gears with my coach, Sonni, tomorrow morning… will write more then!

I’ve had a pretty busy week, despite being ‘out of work’ for the first week of summer. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have master’s swim practice and then go straight to coach the high school cross country team. We met at Athens Monday and Friday, but on Wednesday we ran at Umstead. It was nice to be on the trails for a longer run. So pretty much I get up at 5:10 on all those mornings, get my ass handed to me in the pool… then go run with the cross country kids… and eat a huge breakfast when I get home!

Today, some of the cross country runners got in the pool right after our run for a short swim. We’re really lucky at Athens to have the Lake Johnson Pool (part of the Raleigh Parks & Rec) right at our stadium. So it’s right there, and very convenient. A lot of the kids came over to swim, which was cool. I think it’ll really help with their running. We did some relays and stuff, so everyone would be able to join in and not feel like they had to be great swimmers.

Needless to say, my arms feel like they are going to fall off at any moment now that I have done two swims already today.

I had two workshops this week too. Tuesday was “Passive-Aggressive Student,” put on by the Behavior Specialist team from Wake County Schools Central Office. It was very informative, and I really learned a lot from it. Thursday, I had an “IEP Development” workshop over at Central Office put on by the Legal & Compliance crew. This was also a really great workshop. I was really impressed with how well they did covering the legal issues of creating compliant Individual Education Programs (IEP), and the really cool thing is that they put the whole workshop on blackboard (which is an online access module). This action is nice so that people can go through the information at their own pace, and at home (or anywhere) at their own convenience. I’m really glad I attended this workshop because some new changes to IDEA 2004 has effected the way that IEPs should be written.

I got up early both of these mornings to run at Umstead with Sheldon. He really likes to go run with me in the forest.

I was going to go do the Tour de Kale tomorrow morning, but decided to opt out of that. The drive is pretty far, and we’d have to get up really, really early to get there on time. I’m going to do a tri workout with Alicia instead down at Harris Lake Park. The Triangle Triathlon has been moved down there this year, and people are getting together to look at the course. I’m not doing the race because Iron Mountain is the same day.

Awh well… the woods are my home anyways…

Here’s an article from the Wilson Times about the Buckhorn Triathlon this past weekend. Paul did a great job writing it up, and Marty and Richard are quoted in there too!! Really cool.

First time’s a charm
Buckhorn triathlon draws praise, large crowd

By Paul Durham | Sports Editor

With a large, enthusiastic crowd supporting 110 participants, the inaugural TrySports Battle at Buckhorn Triathlon was a smashing success Saturday.

While Marty Gaal of Cary and Alisha Lion of Raleigh took home the Buckhorn Belt Buckles as the overall male and female winners, respectively, the true winner seemed to be Buckhorn Lake.

Under a gorgeous blue morning sky, the first wave of swimmers in the sprint triathlon hit the water at 8 a.m. By the time the final competitor crossed the finish line two-and-a-half hours later, the temperature was just starting to heat up.

“The course was beautiful. This is one of my favorite venues that I’ve ever done,” said Lion, who has competed as a professional triathlete and cyclist. “The swim was perfect, hardly any chop which for a weak swimmer is just what you want. The bike course was rolling but enough hills so that it wasn’t easy and the run course felt a lot hillier than it was so it must have been hard.”

The course consisted of a 1,000-meter swim followed by a 17.5-mile bicycle ride around the lake and ended with a 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) run.

Gaal, a personal trainer and triathlon coach, was the first out of the water — coming in at 12:09 — and he never relinquished the lead.

“It’s a nice way to do it,” he said. “It doesn’t always work out that way but today it did.”

Gaal, who at age 37 has been involved in the sport for nearly 20 years, has participated in more than 100 triathlons, including the holy grail — the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Gaal, who is training for the Philadelphia Insurance Olympic-distance Triathlon, came to Buckhorn after seeing the event on the schedule of Finish Strong Series, the production company.

“I know these guys because they set up a lot of races around Cary and I saw this come up on the schedule and I thought it would be nice to go out to a new area,” he said. “This is beautiful.”

Jason Biggs, the event coordinator for Finish Strong which puts on 15-20 triathlons a year, said the debut went smoothly.

“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback already from the participants so we look forward to making this an annual event and bringing people to Wilson County and the area,” Biggs said.

Coming off a break following a collision with a vehicle nearly two years ago, Lion made her return to road triathlons at Buckhorn. The 28-year-old Appalachian State University graduate last competed in a road triathlon at L’Orient, France, in the ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in 2007.

“I had to work for it definitely. It wasn’t a cakewalk for me,” she said of Saturday’s effort. “I pushed it as much as I could go. I didn’t shut things down until the last half-mile or so when I could see that I had it.

“I really wanted that belt buckle!”

Laura Hanson, the 2008 Wilson Times Athlete of the Year as a senior at Fike High School, also made her return to competition. Hanson, who just finished her freshman year at Wake Forest University, came in ninth out of 26 female competitors. Her time of 22 minutes, 32 seconds was second-best in the run in her triathlon debut.

“It was fun. I miss it so much,” said Hanson. “You never really lose that competitiveness.”

There were 104 individual competitors, with 22 listing a Wilson County address, and eight teams, including five from Wilson.

True to its nature, the triathlon featured few competitors who excelled in all three legs. Richard Armstrong of Durham finished second overall in the men’s race despite coming in 10th in the swim and seventh in the bike ride.

“I came out of the water and was down quite a bit — as usual, since I’m weaker in the swim,” he said. “I moved up a bit through the ride and was surprised by the hills at the end, actually. I read it on the Web site but didn’t believe it through the first few miles, so we suffered a little bit at the end.”

Armstrong said he and several other competitors were in training and decided to make the Battle at Buckhorn part of their third day of training camp.

Did that mean he was ready to run another 10 miles?

“Not today, no,” Armstrong said with a laugh. “That’s tomorrow!”

paul@wilsontimes.com | 265-7808

I had a great time racing at the Battle at Buckhorn Triathlon yesterday. The Finish Strong guys did an excellent job putting on the event (once again!).

A HUGE thank you to Jon of TrySports, my new sponsor for the year. I couldn’t have done the race without your support… you’ve truly been the motivation to get me back out to race. THANK YOU SO MUCH! And, of course, I want to thank my coach, Sonni, of Studio 7 Multisport. Sonni has always stood by me no matter what and I will never have another coach as long as I live.

This race was definitely one of my favorite races ever, course-wise. It was such a nice venue. You folks should check it out next year if you can!

The best part of this race was the prize- the overall winners (male & female) won a genuine hand-crafted belt buckle. SWEET! Great motivation to get out there and race hard.

This was my first road triathlon since Worlds in France a couple years ago. I had a great time, and I’m definitely looking to do more tris this summer.

Check out the video that Joe put together from the race: