Hamstring Bedlam

Plans fell into place to do a pre-ride of the Boone Roubaix. E and I did this last year with the CLM, but this year we were joined by Stack from PRP. After meeting in the wee hours of the AM (read: 715) Erich and I headed up towards Boone. We had planned on getting there around 9, but came rolling in in the anemic 4cylinder around 830. Stack promptly greeted us with his two hound dogs (one of which was in the cone of shame). After getting kitted up, we were off. We quickly hit our first dirt/gravel section and Erich and I both had bottles abandon ship. Thoroughly ejected. About seven or eight miles in things started to look vaguely familiar from last year's course, but not before we had gotten in another section of gravel. After rocking most of the course, we stopped in at River Girl to refill bottles.

After stopping in at River Girl we rode most of the smaller loop again before heading back towards Stack's place. We opted for a bit of a different route and headed down Dell Coffey Road. If you are ever riding in Boone and have a near constant cache of grit in your teeth from your yearning to ride gravel, hit this road. It's no joke. E and Stack dropped down this thing like they were anchors. We regrouped at the bottom, which means, basically I unpuckered my hind end and caught up with them on the flat, and headed back towards Boone.

The three of us kept the pace pretty hot for the entire morning, and true to form, Erich and I were both hurting in the same spots along the course. He had mentioned in his blog that he noticed that we have been having some examples of the effects of training symmetry.
E shaking out some of the lactic acid in the hopes of not cramping:

We finished with about 45-50 miles and probably around 4ishK feet of climbing. Needless to say, with the vagaries in the previous sentence, I not only forgot my heart rate monitor, but also forgot to charge the GPS.



Post ride hilarity ensued at Black Cat Burritos when I had a massive hamstring cramp in front of the whole place. Normally, when experiencing one of these cramps, I would liken myself to a woman in labor. I would typically sputter a few words, fall to the ground and weep while making my legs entirely rigid. So as not to embarass everyone in the place, least of all myself, I decided to man up and fight it off. I think I heard thunder and saw lightning as I fought to stave it off, but to no avail. After about three or four minutes of misery, gnashing of teeth, and sweating the cramp finally subsided and I got to finish my food. This was all much to the amusement of my compatriots. Loving every minute of it!