Training Log Archive: veinbuster

Back to the home routine

C • Welcome home! 3

And...I forgot to do my arrive Can before leaving the hotel. Then had an unsuccessful fight to find a signal strong enough to upload my credentials. Eventually Flight sent me a code (she had my credentials from out previous trip). Of course, when I got to the speaker phone border agent, they didn’t care about it.

Safely home.

Nice hotel, but my room was a bit short on floor space.

Just the basics before going back to the Trace for a birthday ride

C • Birthday! 2

Natchez Trace finale

Time for a Flight to do a straight through ride without having to double back,

The hotel was a good distance from the Trace so we drove to the Alabama-Tennessee state line, crossed it together and then carried on up what proved to be a very long uphill. Not steep, but close to 15km long. Part way up, my heart monitor started reading low. It was a bit disconcerting to have a heart rate around 110 when I was using all the oxygen I could get.

I loop back to get the truck while Flight carried on for a 72km ride. I took a couple minutes to regroup, and adjust the heart strap before heading back. Heart rate now showed about right and I managed a decent pace on the descent into a bit of a headwind. I was a bit early getting back, so continued into Alabama to make sure I had at least 36km in.

Then took the truck north, expecting to see Flight at 65-70 km. I didn’t, so pulled into the bigger stop over and didn’t see her in the directions bathrooms appeared to be marked at. Before I left, I took another branch of the stop area and saw her by the bike.

Then to Nashville for a birthday dinner with my brother and his wife.

Apparently Wednesday is Flight’s rest day, so we had mimosa flights for breakfast.

Wandering around looking for interesting things.
Time is what Oura considered activity. We were walking longer than that, though there were pauses.

Record low readiness score of 55 when I would normally get up, so I slept for another hour to boost it up to 62.

Elvis walking tour while waiting for it to warm up.
It added up to 4.9 km, but not really exercise.
Lots of fun art, and a really nice park area at his birth place.

Natchez Trace day 4

We decided to drive up to the Trace and ride into the wind for a bit. We noted two candidate turn around. I opted for the earlier one and invited Flight to carry on to the next. I’m hoping for a better readiness score from Oura tomorrow by not working too hard today.

In addition to being into the wind, there was a decent net increase in elevation heading north from the Tupelo welcome center. It shows mostly in the reduced effort to go back south a bit faster. This comparison was accidental, in that I didn’t mean to end the ride at the turn around.

Natchez Trace day 4 southbound

Having watched the altimeter going north, I was ready to take advantage of the net 50m descent and tailwind on the return. I did have to climb back up to the peak, but it felt easy knowing where the peak was. Then I just milked the downhills enough to be able to roll up the little upward sections.

I passed two members of a touring group on the return. This conveniently got me back to the welcome centre to chat with the rest of the group and find out that there was an extensive road closure not far north of where we went today - so much for doing a leap frog ride to Muscle Shoals tomorrow. We’ll just drive up to Alabama on good roads and regroup there.

It was good to take an easy day.

Oura readiness score up to 63 today.

Neither Flight or I were feeling a ride in 10C and strong headwinds, so instead of a ride/drive leap frog to Tupelo, we drove. We did stop to walk up the Little Mountain. It is apparently a high spot in Mississippi.

We noticed many hiking opportunities. Much of it is the ‘old trace’ - the original freedom walk.

Natchez Trace day 3

Let’s talk about navigation challenges.

Our hotel was 3km from the Trace, but it took us 12+ km to get onto it. Interval 1 was much busier road than we wanted to be on, but it seemed fairly direct. Unfortunately, we went over the Trace, not across it. We navigate back to another crossing with a little trail beside it that would connect, except that the trail was suitable for walking, not for biking. Next we took a road to the ramps for a highway; half expecting a hard barrier. Luckily, we just had the make a hard left U turn.

While Flight put in a bit of a hard effort, I cruised North to find a handy way back. Turns out that the road we had started on connects the Trace just north of where we had turned. I waited for Flight and we took a straight shot back, on a road that was too busy. While waiting though, I had found a quieter connector and looked for confirmation of the intersection a block from our hotel.

A bit of a short ride, but now we know the way.