One last hoorah...

So Iv still been keeping my nose to the grindstone and have put together a relatively good three weeks of training.

Last week I introduced some intensity for the first time since road season with some 3, 5 and 20 minute interval sessions. The legs have been waking up from their break well and wit three more weeks of prep before the beginning of mountain bike season Id say I might be almost ready come September 3rd. Iv thrown in some more hilly rides (rides gaining more than 100ft elevation for every mile) this week to keep up the pain and all is going well. Nothing exciting yet just putting in the preparation, more on that in a minute.

This past weekend I did take my last getaway before law school starts up to Beech Mountain. Saturday we headed over to Grandfather Mountain for some nice views and even nicer hiking trails. These trails aren’t the nearly paved greenway trails you often see in state parks, these are bit more advanced. The trails are covered in boulders and many trails require use of a premounted cable rope to climb up a rock face. The wife didn’t love them as much as I did but she was patient as I explored some sections she didn’t feel comfortable traversing.

At the end of the day we put in a few miles of hiking which is something that hasn’t happened as much as it did last year.
Saturday evening we made our way up to Beech and scoped out the trails we planned to hike Sunday. I was somewhat familiar with the trail system up there after our mtb race there last fall but a lot of work has been done since then. The trails looked very nice and the views were awesome from the highest town east of the Mississippi. Sunday morning I woke up took a shower and got ready for another day of hiking. I sat down with my morning coke and pulled back the curtains to find rain pelting the window with the wind howling. We tried to wait it out but we were forced to check out at 11 and with the rain still coming down we headed down the mountain to Banner Elk. We messed around on the greenway trail there a minute but ultimately called it a day and the wife went shopping because quote “ what else can you do on a rainy day”.

This week has been mostly prep fro law school next week but I did find time to go get a round of Golf in with Ben this morning because as he puts it “it wouldn’t be time to start school unless we had played golf or went skiing.” I had originally told him I would meet him at 8 at a little church down the road but I woke up this morning after the wife left for work and realized I had no vehicle. I tried calling Ben to see if he would come pick my up but no answer. I tried about 17 more times up till 8:15 with no luck. Finally still clad in my golf shirt and shorts I straped on the bike shoes and rode the 3 miles to the church. Of course he was sitting there still patiently waiting on me 30 minutes late. We did end up making it to the course and despite horrible golf games we still had a great morning. I honestly wish I had more time to play but I guess that’s what retirements for.

I did have an essay I wrote on preparation for a bike contest I was going to let yall read and critique but I suppose Ill save it for next week or the next as starting back to law school this blog may suffer.