So I decided yesterday that I was going to do a loop to include Tater Hill. For those o’ you that ain’t Southern (fo’ real), that’s tater… like tater chips, tater tots, baked taters… ya know. Except for this “hill” isn’t a “hill.” It’s a freakin’ WALL. I’ve only climbed it once, with Jim Harmon, years ago when I was a professional cyclist. Now that I’m a tri-geek, I still have that cycling blood in me and these crazy rides call my name. Then, I can’t get them out of my head until I do them, and so I do them… and wonder why the hell I’m doing this to myself while I’m doing them… and so it goes.

But really, the bottom line is, I love this shit… really. The more epic and crazy, the more I’m all about it. I’ve always been like that… it’s in my nature. And this phenomenon has been more emphasized by the fact that after going through my burnout period, I am still all about “the crazy.” Give me more. BRING IT. Love it.

So… Tater Hill. Man, that is one steep bitch. Wow, I remember it was hard when I did it years ago. Tater Hill is several miles long (not sure how many) and it averages 20% the whole way. Yes, AVERAGES that. Not it’s 20% in some spots… it averages that like the whole way, seriously. Fo’ real.

So I’m going up this hell… um, I mean HILL… um, I mean, MOUNTAIN… and I’m thinking to myself, “why did I decide to do this? What gear am I in? Oh, 23, okay I guess I can let myself use my 25 (again, the cyclist in me… I absolutely HATE WUSSY GEARS. Wussy gears = a 27 just so you can ride in the mountains. Really? Give me a break. A 25 is WUSSY if you ask me, so I only use it in absolute dyer circumstances… because, YES, I feel like a WUSS when I use more than a 23 to climb ANYTHING.)… wow, that view is pretty… good LORD where is the top of this thing??”

And just when I thought I was going to fall off my bike, or slip off the handle bars because my hands were so sweaty… the road turns to gravel.

And it keeps going up.

I told you it was epic.  …and, I love this shit.

So I keep goin on the gravel, and actually I like the gravel better… brings me to my “happy mountain biking place”… even though it’s brutal because now the road is still steep, and now you can’t stand up because you’ll spin out. You have to stay seated to keep weight on the back wheel to keep moving forward.

FINALLY, I reached the top. Then I had about 5 miles or so of gravel road along the ridge until I dropped down Howard’s Knob. For those of you that don’t know, Howard’s Knob is a SCREAMIN’ fast decent. You hit 50 miles an hour easily going down this hill.

I just happened to stop to check my tires before pointing downhill, and, sure enough, I had a slow leak in my front tire. I changed it real quick and was on my way.

The rest of my ride was good, but pretty much any amount of climbing I did after Tater Hill really made me wanna cry. I didn’t though. I made it back to Blowing Rock about 4.5 hrs after I started, so a pretty good day on the bike.

Today the weather was iffy in the High Country. It was supposed to rain all day, but it ended up just being a short shower in the morning and a short one in the evening. I decided to just do a long run all the same, so I wouldn’t have to endure 4-5 hours on the bike soaking wet (this is where being a tri-geek now makes me really happy!).

I went for a run at Bass Lake, and ran up to the firetower. This run is 5.5 miles uphill, pretty steep in places, and then you turn around and run back down. You get to climb up a firetower and lookout over the whole area once you run all the way up to the top (hence the name, “firetower run”). You can see ASU’s campus in Boone, Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain, Rich Mountain, Sugar Mountain, and the top of Howard’s Knob. It’s an amazing view. I like the perspective you get up there… another reason I love this run.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I started out today, because I haven’t done a long run in, well, a pretty long time. I’ve avoided them actually. Running more than an hour really bothered my hip for a while, and I just felt too tired to run much more than that.

Today was completely different. I actually felt like I had my old running form back. I actually felt like a runner again. This is the first time I’ve felt like that since my truck accident a couple years ago.

Hmm, maybe I will run a good Bear after all. We’ll see. I’m still not super-fast on my run, but I’m confident now that it’ll come back soon.

I’m excited.