Happy Campers

So, here we go comp hours – just like I promised you. Sizzle your little hearts out – because you are officially ashes! We had a fantastic time! Very relaxing, very serene, very simple, very peaceful, very fun, very exciting, and very – EVERYTHING A CAMPING TRIP IS MEANT TO BE!! :-) And guess who our honored guest was. Hattie. That’s right! Hattie Jane Matthews. She is an adventuresome little girl and she loves to be outdoors! But she doesn’t like to be away from her mommy. I figure that there are many vacations I will want to go on, when it is just not feasible to take her along. But this one – well, it was perfect for her. And yeah… it was a little bit of trouble here and there, but really almost none and it was so worth it. To see her running her little heart out to stay with K and I out on the mountain bike trails was good for my soul. And good for her heart and lungs! When we arrived at the Tsali campground we started unloading. K setup our tent, we put on our mtb shoes and decided we’d take Hattie on her first trail adventure. We headed for the right loop and she went 3 miles with us! I think I was more excited that she was going than she was! I am a real fool for this dog if you can’t tell :-/ We got everything settled in and got plenty of firewood gathered up for the night and we cooked “Campfire spaghetti.” We weren’t sure if the spaghetti was really just THAT much better than spaghetti you cook at home or if we were just so starved by the time it finally got done that it seemed better. Nevertheless, we both had a big plate of spaghetti and garlic texas toast. Who counts calories on a camping trip? Not I! We cleaned up our mess, grabbed a cold one …. Or two…. Or three….and kicked back in our chairs around the fire. The temperature/weather could not have been more appropriate. Mid-70’s during the day and mid 50’s at night. We got out our deck of cards and played a few hands of black jack and K gave me some poker lessons. Then it was Smores time! We got out the goods. We toasted marshmallows in the fire and wrapped hershey’s chocolate and graham crackers around it and gave it a good SMOOSH and whatta ya know ladies and gentlemen – it’s a homemade fan-damn-TASTIC SMORE! I was in heaven! Those things are off the freakin HOOK! And they literally get all over your face no matter how hard you try not to. You can only imagine – I am not shy when it comes to chocolate :-) Around 9:30 K and I decided it was getting close to time to turn it in and there were some bathroom issues to be dealt with. Ya know… I needed to wash my face, put my contacts in their solution, moisturize, etc…. and take care of bizness on the potty. Well K walked up to the bath house first and I wasn’t paying much attention but for some reason – assumed the womens bathroom was the door on the left and the mens was the door on the right. So I be-bopped on into the left door only to see that my 1 bathroom stall was occupied. Bummer…. Cause Holly Jane had to GO. That campfire spaghetti and smores was not going to hang out for much longer. Well hell…. Whatta ya do? Wait it out. So I pranced through there again to make sure there really was no other stall while I had my little “bath bag” with towels and wash cloths, soap, contact solution etc…. on my shoulder and all of the sudden the poor lady who had my stall occupied had a major TNT fiasco!!! If you need a definition of TNT, please refer to Lana’s blog for details. We are talking – she let the hammer down. And I squinted my face out of embarrassment for her and promised myself really quick I would not let out a single giggle and pretend I never heard it. About 4 seconds later I hear “Holly – you’re in the wrong bathroom” I jumped – still with my little bath bag on my shoulder. “huh?” I say very proper-like. “You’re in the men’s.” And it’s K. And I say “IS THAT YOU?!!!!????!!!” and he dies laughing and says “yes” and I say “Well, there IS a urinal in here. Hang on – let me go check." So I go look at the sign on the door again and sure enough – it was a boy with pants on. No girl with a skirt. Oh geez…. So after laughing so hard that we were both nearly in tears, I took my little bath bag next door and took care of bizness and all that other cosmetic stuff. Back to the campsite and soon enough we were all 3 in the tent. Yep, I said all 3 :-) Hattie is a bit spoiled, but I love her anyways. Saturday morning we got up and K had the bacon sizzling and I scrambled the eggs. We had a wonderful breakfast and it’s so cool to cook outdoors in the wilderness. And to pull it all off!! It’s awesome. So we got our bellies full and put on our riding gear. Off we go to the Thompson loop. This was about a 9 mile loop and it got my heart pumping! I am a nervous mountain biker anyways – but I haven’t been back on that thing since our Oak Mountain trip in May. So I was a bit squirely….. and I forgot my knee pads. No big deal though – I never needed them the entire weekend. Never crashed. K is a phenomenal mountain biker. This guy is loaded with zen. If I could look and feel half as comfortable as he is on the bike, we’d be in bizness. The more technical the trail, the better he rides. For me – I am the opposite. I like a nice, smooth single track where I can relax and concentrate on power. After the first loop, we headed back to the campsite to check on Hattie. She was there – waiting with tear stains all over her face. We busted out the hotdogs and roasted them on the fire for a little lunch snack, then we decided to hit it again – the Mouse loop is next. It was around 8 miles. We ran up on a couple of girls who had mechanical problems with a chain and of course K was the good Samaritan by taking the chain apart and putting it back together for them so they could continue on without pushing the bike for another 3 miles. So, we finished strong on this loop knowing we were done for the day and I followed K down a pretty big drop off back to the campsite. I really could not believe I had the guts to plunge in like that, but I thought “Well the worst that can happen is I’ll definitely crash on my face and I will at least be giving it a shot. “ I didn’t crash though – I stood up and leaned way back over my back tire, dragged my brakes pretty hard and held my balance to the bottom. What a rush of adrenaline!! Back to the bath house for a shower – this time things went a bit smoother and if there were any TNT episodes I never knew about them! LOL. Back to the campsite for some dinner! Wow, this was a lot of eating. No wonder I feel 10lb heavier! The menu for Saturday night read – Grilled chicken marinated in Italian, wild herb rice & some good ole Texas toast with a cold mich ultra! Another fabulous meal prepared by two happy campers – for sure! We were down 16 miles for mtb’ing and our appetites were hearty! Since it was Saturday, guess what that means. At “Camp-H&K” Saturday night means it’s double chocolate night! Get out the graham crackers, the marshmallows and pull double Hershey bars – it’s going to be decadant! We roasted smores and doubled up on the chocolate. Guys – I ate 3. With double chocolate! LOL. Well heck – if you can’t live on the edge when you’re camping, when can you? K had pure entertainment sitting there watching me eat them all. It wasn’t long after the Smores contest and it was bed-time. Tent-time. Till the sun rose the next morning. We got up, packed almost everything in the vehicle and headed over to the Nantahala river and had breakfast at a very neat little restaurant overlooking the river that we ate at last time we were in that neck of woods. We also shopped around a little in the NOC and got some killer deals on some t-shirts. We headed back to Tsali to the campsite, got on our riding gear and took off for our final ride before departing and heading back to good ol Tennessee. We rode the Right Loop, which is the race course. We didn’t do the entire loop because we were running low on time and knew we’d be on the road the rest of the afternoon. But we did get in around 8.5 miles. It was on this loop that there was about a 4ft black racer snake hanging out in the middle of the trail. Ewww…. We both hate snakes. This loop had beautiful views on Fontanna Lake. This lake looked like a tropical carribean destination. It was turquoise and clear. Very cool. We finished her up and got changed and headed west to get back home around 5pm Sunday night. This was a vacation well worth taking. It was just about 2 days too short. And happy campers we are :-) Yesterday I knew I had to do something about the massive amount of smores I ate over the weekend so I met Lana for a 6 mile run at lunch that pushed me to the max!!! Total time- 53:53. I hadn’t run in a week! I did finally get to try out my new Mizuno Wave Nirvana 4’s and they felt great!! You never realize how bad you need new running shoes until you finally get them. Today I did an 18 mile lunch ride with Lana. I really needed more than that to try and prepare for LOL.

"She works hard for the money, So hard for it Honey!"

Work is getting in the way with my personal life and my training. I don't like that. I am getting calls at night and stuff. But guys - I have comp time that needs to be burned. And I am going to burn it in tons of flames this weekend in North Carolina - Tsali. I didn't get to go last weekend so I will be making up for it camping and mountain biking. Last Friday was K's birthday. Me, him and G went out Friday night and celebrated. Saturday morning I got up early and struck out for what I had planend to be a 60-70 mile ride, but I saw that at mile 50, I could get back home in 56 and honey... I pedaled for the door! I am SICK and TIRED of getting chased by dogs. I was chased on Old Woodbury Hwy, Matts Hollow Rd, and Mt View Rd. I rode from my house to Old Woodbury Hwy, Matts Hollow, Farrar Hill, Hwy 41 to Blantan's Chapel all the way into Tullahoma and back home through AEDC. My legs were sore! I averaged 17.5 on the full 56 miles. Saturday afternoon was UT getting their butt stomped by the chomp chomp Gators. Monday morning I managed to run 5 miles at lunch. K & I met some friends and watched Monday night football - well - until halftime. Last night we rented Sex and the City and boy did I love it!! I love that show anyways - but the movie was great, I thought! And guess who met me for a 26 mile ride yesterday. K! We rode through Smith's Chapel, over into Lynchburg and back to Tullahoma. Fun ride with a lot of climbing.

LOL is a week from this Saturday. I'm starting to get extremely concerned about the level of suffering I am going to endure!

LOL is in my near future....

I'm trying to think back over the last 2 weeks.... but I'm having a hard time! Too much has gone on I guess so I'll do the best I can. I have been keeping a steady training schedule (with a little bit a'golf here and there) trying to get in 2 rides and 3 runs per week. Last week I ran 5 on Monday, rode 20 on Tuesday during lunch, I got up at 4:15am & ran 6 on Wednesday morning where Tim, Lee, Holly J, & Lana found me out on hwy 41. I was enlightened running my last 2 miles with these speedsters! I ran 5 on Thursday during my lunch break and boy was it hot and humid out there!!!! As for Friday - I deemed it a much-needed rest day. Rest for the weekend right? Yeah.... until Saturday morning when we met Tim, Lee, & Don for a 43 mile ride through Beechgrove and Firelake. Could that have been better riding conditions? Yea, it was a little breezy, but man was it pleasant out there! Tim was sporting his new Cervelo P2C! I think this is the first time I've gotten to meet her! She is really sweet. I am trying to do some long rides from now until LOL Century Ride on October 4th. I am really looking forward to it this year. I am mainly looking forward to peaking at Crystal Ridge, while still clipped in and barely barely moving the pedals........ but knowing there's no stopping me. Hold on black betty! It's going to be a ride of a lifetime :-)

As for this week - well I'm going for it. Monday morning started out with what I had planned to be a 5 mile run starting at 6am. Until I got out there and even with a Garmin - I somehow miscalculated my distance and forgot about my home-stretch being 1 mile longer than expected. Luckily, I felt great during this run and was willing and happy to finish with 6 miles in exactly 54 minutes. Today I joined Lana for a 23 mile ride during lunch through Ledford Mill, climbed Brinkley hill (which we are convinced is no harder and maybe not as tough as the 3 steps climb)then on over to Motlow College Road and back to Cedar Lane. This was also - one heck of a ride. Very enjoyable and relaxing. When we ride we don't stress. We will hammer for awhile when it seems fitting, climb a few hard hills, recover for awhile and talk and laugh, then back to hammer-time, etc... But no stress, and no competition. I like it :-)

Tomorrow morning the plan is to run somewhere between 6 and 8 miles and possibly ride to work on Thursday???? This weekend ahead of us has a lot to offer!!! I am really excited even though the plans are not in stone just yet. It's either going to involve camping and mountain biking at Tsali - or the UT/Florida game. I don't think there's a bad choice in either of those - do you? :-)

Catching Up

So…. Ok I’m not doing that great keeping my blog posted. My life has really been booming lately! Work has been in sanely CRAZY. I’ve kept up with my training for the most part. Last week I managed to do 2 bike rides and 1 run – ok, so not so hot after all! But this week? Has been different, my friends. Monday morning (Labor Day) a 4 mile run. I deemed a success since I did not fall out with a heat stroke. K and I hung out the rest of the day running errands and being productive – by actually doing things around my house that have been waiting for almost a year. After a nice Mexican lunch we watched UT get stomped by UCLA with some other peeps. Then back to work on Tuesday – yuck. A 24 mile bike at lunch with Lana, spaghetti for dinner and wouldn’t ya know it!!! K built us a fire! We watched a movie, then sat around the fire pit! Not a better way to unwind for the evening! A 5 mile run Wed morning, and a 17 mile bike with Lana on Thursday brings us to today – R-E-S-T.
Thank God it’s the weekend!!!
Goodluck to Lana and Tim this weekend at the Elk River Valley Century – climbing Alto at mile 60 or 70 should be fun. Or not. But you will be stronger – no doubt!