74 and sunny!

Ha ha - JUST KIDDING!

Kim, Jay and I headed up to do the Cohutta Death March this morning expecting sunshine and rainbows. When we started at 8:30, it was around 50 degrees and foggy. Oh yeah, and the roads were still wet from yesterday's rain. So we were off to kind of a rough start, but it turned out to be a good ride nonetheless. After about 3.5 hours the sun finally came out, and since I didn't put any sunscreen on, I now have a polka dot sunburn pattern on my legs from all the crusty mud globs I had on them. I tried out some new Maxxis tires, and they were hooking up great in the corners and my rebuilt rear shock was working nicely. A huge thanks to OutSpokin' for letting me cannibalize a shock they already had on a frame to make mine work for today. I think I have the best combination set up for the Cohutta 100 in two weeks.

It was also really nice to not have to carry so much gear. Last time we did the loop, we ended up getting a later start than we would have liked due to me having a doctor appointment, so we had to bring extra warm clothes, lights, enough food for two days, and various other survival items. Yup, we had so much crap that we could have probably camped out, but I'm always one to bring more than necessary in case something unexpected happens. Its going to be very nice not having to carry ANYTHING other than bottles in the race.

I also have a new favorite long ride food...thawed out frozen steak and cheese burritos. We tried them at CP Zero, and they kind of sucked because it was so cold that they pretty much stayed frozen. With the mild weather of today, they thawed nicely and were YUMMY! Much better than an Ensure. I also really liked where we started the ride - basically at Aid Station #4 of the Cohutta 100. It gave us a nice gradual warmup with 15 miles of mostly downhill at the end back to the cars...much better than starting at Gates Chapel and having to deal with Moutaintown, Three Forks, and Betty Gap right at the end.