Blue Ridge Ride o Kick our Ass!

The reports are in, Hung and I are seriously hurting from this killer rider. When we arrived at the departure place we found several other bikers who asked if we'd like to join them.

We decided to take them up on their offer but didn't know what we had gotten into until the ride began.

It was then that we quickly found out that several of them were training for half and full Ironman's. YIKES!! We were out of our league since both Hung and I have been relogated to domestic duties like fatherhood and remodeling. So we had not kept up on our training as these "real" atheletes had.

We knew we were in trouble when we covered the first 20 miles in 1 hour!! That's freakin ridiculous. An average speed of 20 MPH?!? I don't know how I did it. Plus we had not even got to the major Mt. Weather Climb! Thank goodness for my Aeorbars.

By this time Hung was still keeping up but I had fallen behind. Although I managed to keep up on the straight aways, once we hit hills, I got crushed by the other guys who took of into the distance.

It wasn't too long after that that we started the ascent. It was grueling but both of us made it up the incredible Mt. Weather climb. I preferred the slow and steady climb whereas Hung, "with the rice burner engine," took the ascent much faster.

The real pain didn't hit until the next peak at around mile 43. That 1200' climb was the near end of both of us. Eventhough this climb was smaller than the previous one, it was much more painful as we were both completely exhausted. Hung'r was crashing and I would have too if it wasn't for that third ring on my bike. Thank God for the Granny Gear!!

At this point we were at the very end of the pack. We had now been passed by the two girls in our group who were obviously in much better shape than us.

At this point all I could do was look at my odometer and say to myself..."only 10 miles to go...only 9.9 miles to go...only 9.8 milese to go."

After that second killer hill any slight incline made my quads feel like they were going to explode.

We completed the whole 56 mile ride in 4 hours elapsed time, and 3 hours 15 minutes of riding time. According to my Polar watch I burned around 3,000 calories.

That night I went to bed at 8 PM together with Grant. Looks like I'll need to train more before the next time I try the Blue Ridge Challenge.