Eat. Tri. Venture.

So the last couple of weeks have really been a great blend for all three.  Let’s start with the tri part.  This week’s recovery wraps up my second block of interval-focused training.  I’ve been working on run drill intervals at 5k pace, painful, long, broken sets of 2000 in the pool, also painful, and a mountain bike race, time trial test and more intervals on the bike.  The time trial test was a bit of a fail as I was just absolutely burned out from the race and intervals I had done a few days earlier.  But in addition to the threshold work, I completed a nice, long run, where I felt strong, even though I have not been running as many miles recently, and several long mountain bike rides.  It’s nice that summer finally appears to be here and the trails are drying out.  That being said, I’m enjoying every minute of my recovery week. 

Eat.  I have managed to stay on track for the most part, even while traveling last weekend to Asheville, NC.  Asheville is well-known for its progressive, local food scene and I was not disappointed.  Our local tour guides took us to several restaurants which catered to all dietary considerations including vegetarian, dairy and gluten free.  Besides enjoying some great local grub, I got ideas for some new recipes to try at home. 

Venture.  JMac and I ventured to several new areas over the weekend.  First, we checked out the mountain bike trails at Mountwood Park in West Virginia on our drive down to North Carolina.  http://www.mountwoodpark.org/Biking_trails.html   While we only had a chance to ride a small part of the thirty mile system, the trails were in good shape, well-marked and fun.  The park itself was very nice as well.  After riding, we enjoyed a picnic lunch there before getting back on the road.  Being only ten minutes off of interstate 77, we definitely plan on going back there again either as a getaway weekend or on our next trip down south.  We next ventured to more new and not so new trails at Bent Creek in Asheville.  http://www.mtbikewnc.com/trailheads/pisgah-national-forest/pisgah-ranger-district/bent-creek/   I had ridden there several years ago on my last visit to the area.  My recollection of my introductory ride there was long, painful, uphill gravel grinding followed by long, sometimes scary downhills.  It’s amazing what a couple of additional years on the mountain bike will do.  Nothing could be farther from the truth than my memory of yore.  While you do utilize a gravel park road to connect the various trails, the climbing was a lot less painful than I remembered.  And the downhills?  So fun.  So. Much. Fun.  There were wide, sweeping, banked turns, allyoops, and on the trails we rode, very few obstacles to navigate.  The trails at Bent Creek were a blast.  I am so very jealous of the folks in Asheville who have access to such a great system right outside their door.