Wintergreen Training Camp Summary

Around 5:30 on Friday, I arrived at the Big House, AKA Animal House because there were something like 20 dudes staying in the 9 bedroom mansion. Pretty much everyone was laying around the living room, trying to recover from the 100+ ride and waiting for lasagna dinner.

By dinner time, Matty Parker was still MIA, and everyone was real concerned. Turns out he got dropped by the group and then got lost and wound up riding 126.3 miles (as he liked to clarify). So the big joke the next day was whether or not anyone was going to do the Matty ride.

I was in a smaller house over looking the ski slopes with Espn K ('sPen), Win (can't say his nickname or he'll get pissed) and Sandra, Shaw F (need to drink more water so I don't cramp up and lay on the road like a turtle), Bernie and Jeff (haven't figured out nicknames for them yet). This was a great house cuz it was a lot smaller and quieter.

Saturday's ride was planned to be the hardest: a total of 100 miles, one 4 mile climb with an elevation gain of about 1600 ft and then the long climb back up Wintergreen at the very end of th eday. We pretty much rode tempo the entire day except for a couple of section where the pace really picked up and of course on the climbs, where everyone rode at their own pace. My legs really didn't feel good on the 4 mile climb and my HR was skyrocketing at the beginning of the climb, so instead of trying to keep pace with anyone, I just rode my own tempo and kept my HR below threshold.

We rode through beautiful rolling terrain the rest of the afternoon, and then started up the false flat leading to the start of the Wintergreen climb. I really wasn't feeling that strong, and my back was really tightening up, so again, I just rode my own pace. Just before the Wintergreen entrance, I stood up and ripped the left crank right off the bottom bracket. I swerved to the shoulder and crashed over the front of the bike. Luckily I was only doing something like 8MPH, but it was pretty funny to stand up and see the crank still attached to my shoes flapping around as I tried to walk. I took the vehicle of shame back up the rest of the way to the top of Wintergreen. Not sure what was wrong, but the crank was f'd. Luckily I had brought two bikes with me.

My Suunto monitor recorded a total ride time over 6+hrs and an elevation gain of 8930 ft for the day.

On Sunday, our riding plans were shortened since we had to be checked out of the houses by 1pm. The plan was to ride along the BlueRidge Prkway overlooking the valley to the west. This was my favorite part of the trip, the scenary and road were awesome. In order to get back to our houses, we had to again do the long Wintergreen climb. This time, I didn't ripe my crank off.

End of an awesome two days of training.