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!