Still the best run of the year. No question. Ran with Jon, saw a smiling Dianna at the finish, and I managed to get myself on the TV News talking about beer. Not a bad outing.
The weather wasn’t nearly so flawless as usual, but the course was awesome, only had one person waiting for runners tell me to “F- Off”. But, despite the mist, we lingered on the green longer than we had in years. Youngest kid ran the kids race in a sub-7; oldest kid got caught in traffic in the 5K but still finished in sub-9’s. I managed to finish the 20K in under 2 hours, making 27 miles for the weekend, and showing I’ve got a decent Hartford base. And, I did get Pepe’s Pizza after the race.
Big topic of conversation was how to do a big bike ride, outside of an organized event. It’s a continuation of a thread that I’ve had going on with Jeff and Warren ever since we did Mooseman back in *harumph*.
200 on 100, the classic Vermont Route, is the inspiration. It’s got a couple of great things going for it, such as:
- being reasonably close to a critical mass of folks with whom I want to ride;
- having all sorts of great beer on the route
- Tough course but clearly doable
There is one chief disadvantage:
- It’s freaking 200 miles
- (Which is a long, long way)
So, in brainstorming, we came up with the brilliant idea: Why not make it a two day ride?. ‘Cause, y’know, two hilly centuries back-to-back, that’s super do-able.
Right now the rough outline is:
- Pick a date
- Find a place to stay about halfway up Vermont (Both Canadians and flatland New Englanders coming up)
- Arrive Evening of Day 0 (Geeky crews start with a clean register)
- Supper, beer, awards, and tea
- Wake Up
- Coffee and Bacon
- Ride to Canada on Day 1
- Have our awesome SAG drivers (who will likely be someone’s spouse/significant other) drag our bikes and sweaty us back to our HQ
- Supper, beer, awards, and tea
- Wake Up
- Coffee and Bacon
- Ride to Mass
- Have our awesome SAG drivers (who will likely be someone’s spouse/significant other) drag our bikes and sweaty us back to our HQ
- Supper, beer, awards, and tea
- Wake Up
- Coffee and Bacon
- Ibuprofen
- Return home, sleeping as the SO’s drive, and promise that we’ll do what they want on the next vacation
Route map should be easy – “Follow VT 100”
Anyway, there are details to work out. But, it’s giving me incentive for many more foggy bike rides next spring