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
#18 – True Story. And look at that beautiful bike! I am really liking how epic this is all sounding…lets keep working on this! (Folks in my bike club plan trips like this all the time…how hard can it be?!)
Dude, sounds like fun. Let’s work on it!
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