In revolt and rebellion against the crappy Monday start to my last two weeks (1st in court all morning and last week sweeping an auto body shop for 4 hours) I decided nothing was stopping me from starting this week off right. Woke up at 4:45 and headed to the Chimney gulch trail that goes up lookout mountain. It's 3.5 miles of amazing single track, only technical in a few places, that gains 1800 feet. It was my first time on the trail, I've ridden my road bike up the road up lookout a bunch, and last time I did was jealously looking at the people on the single track while I was nursing an injury. Today it was my turn. I ran up in 46:35 and immediately turned around. Came down in 29:17, both ways were awesome...such a fantastic trail! I passed one other runner coming down who was 5 or so minutes behind me. Then I got out my new bike, threw on my other shorts and shoes, and headed back up. I was surprised to learn it was harder on the bike. The guy behind me had come down and shortly started his second lap. He passed me about half way up, not going much faster, but enough to motor on ahead. I biked up it in 48:26, a couple minutes slower. Then the downhill....ahhh! Did I mention it was an amazing single track through the forest? Perfectly steep, not too technical, but not too easy...that is one of my favorite types of trail. I don't prefer the super technical as much. I was thoroughly enjoying the fast ride down...wishing I had time for another loop, but needing to get home because Nan was waiting longer than anticipated already (I thought biking it would be faster...it would have been overall faster). But with a mile to go to the bottom I pinch flatted my back tire...didn't have enough air. I ran down to where the trail crossed a road, stopped a couple road bikers going up to see if they had a patch...to no avail. I couldn't find mine and didn't have any 29 inch tubes yet. Oh well. Ran the mile down, which worked out fine, not quite as fun as riding it which I was only slightly bummed about...it was really hard to complain to myself because I had already been treated to such a fantastic morning of trail running and riding in the perfect 65 degree cool mountain air. I ended up with 2:35 on the clock for the 14 miles running and biking and somewhere betweeen 36-3800 feet of ascending. When I got home I capped it all off with a an hour and 15 minutes of p90X chest and back workout and some Ab ripper X. Ahhhhh.....now that's the way I like my week to start off. Now the week can proceed properly from there. Have a fantastic Monday everyone! ** later - While out running an errand, I noticed scraping while I drove and had to drop off my car at the shop to get it fixed, something had broken off my axle. Fortunately I had my running shorts and fivefingers in the car from this morning, and I threw them on and ran the 3.5 miles to my house since it was going to be a few hours to fix it. Unexpected but welcome excuse to go running more today, really enjoyed the sweat drenching run in the heat. Conveniently, within moments after I ran out of water I passed a house that had a huge cooler out front with a sign that said 'enjoy a free water or soda' - Nice!!
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