Strategy

Danielle, Namrita, and I have been planning a little training camp for the past several months, with a 6 hour race thrown in the mix of riding singletrack and fireroads in Tennessee and Georgia. We have been talking about how hard the 6 hour will probably be after several hard days in a row and that whoever wins amongst us will be the "training camp sandbagger."

So the plans were for Danielle to come down this past weekend and ride the Cohutta 65 route with me. Well, after the unfortunate mishap with Big Red, a Saturday arrival was questionable. Then she tells me something about how the bad weather in Michigan has slowed everthing down and that Big Red was not going to be fixed in time. But her mother was going to let her drive her van down on Tuesday.

Just yesterday Danielle emails me that her mom's van broke a strut, but that she bought a little car to make the trip. A Ford! at that. Uh oh!

So I do another long ride today, 5 hours and 50 miles of fireroads on Kimsey Mountain. I call it the La Ruta route because it has a little pavement, some railroad tracks, a trestle crossing, steep gravel roads, and some mud thrown in.

I come home, clean up, make dinner, and await Danielle's arrival. I expect it to be around 8 pm. Well, she calls around 7:30 pm, saying something about how on her way through Ohio she noticed that one of the tires was splitting and that she had to make a stop at a tire store to get a new one. And that as she was about to leave the mechanic noticed that the other rear tire was mounted backwards!

So now her arrival will not be until after 11pm ... at least two hours past my bedtime. Yes, I am an early bird; I have a 5 year old, so I go by her schedule in order to get a good night's rest.

At last, I see Danielle's scheme. Wear me out before we even get started! Let me put in 2 hard rides, go to bed late, ride hard for 3 more days, then race. Danielle probably took a 3 hour nap somewhere in Ohio so she could be well rested for the next 3 days. Then put an a$$ whoopin' on me at the 6 hour.

But I plan on counter-attacking! Little does Danielle realize that Carly's room is directly above hers. I bet she does not plan on getting up a 6 am ... he!he!he! By the time she reads this it will be too late.