This past weekend the wife and I took a little trip down to Tennessee. This trip was basically all my idea, and she just went with it. Amazingly enough, we actually had the weekend open for a change, so I saw the opportunity to catch some quality collegiate rowing as well as get some biking in a more scenic environment (no offense Cincinnati). Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday didn’t cooperate so we basically only got one day, but made the most of it. Here’s a recap.
Saturday AM, I woke up and went for my own ride. I was planning on tackling mountains, but ended up psyching myself out as I approached them, so I settled for cycling lots of foothills while taking pictures of mountains.
A little more of the scenery.
Even the roads themselves were beautiful
I got some good work in before heading back to wake up the wife and grab some continental breakfast. There were some rowing teams staying in the same hotel as us, and we ran into them at the breakfast. Some of them were pretty gigantic.
After breakfast, we took off on our bikes for the SIRA Regatta. It’s a collegiate rowing regatta that I used to race in when I rowed at University of Dayton. I always loved the course, and it draws some good competition which is why I was tempted to return.
Docking area at the rowing venue
Varsity Eights at the blocks (Dayton is in the baby blue unisuits)…they win this heat
We hung out at/near the course the bulk of the afternoon catching all the races that had teams we knew and catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while. When there were big lulls in the races we wanted to see, we cruised around on the bikes a bit by the river. BTW, watching a rowing 2k race on bike and catching the whole event is lots more fun than just watching them pass.
There was also this strange duck/bird guarding the trash while we ate lunch. Here he is stretching his neck, maybe
In the evening, we rode home on this path. Lots of little bends made it hard to move quickly, but it was nice scenery, so there was no hurry.
Proof that we were there and I’m not making all this up…complete with our new sunburns
We went out to dinner and met up with a good friend for drinks that night, and that was basically it…a great Saturday. The Sunday weather was gross, but I got up early to catch some of the finals races before we took off for home. On the way back, we picked up our dog who we left at a PetSuites along the way. He seemed happy to see us, or eager to leave…maybe both.
I’m in a recovery week again, and am performing a running taper. My overall load is decreased anyways b/c of the recovery week, but I didn’t cut back on my swim and bike workouts much. I have scaled back my running since I finally kick off the 2009 racing season this Saturday at the Kentucky Derby Festival MiniMarathon that I’ve been mentioning for a few months now. I’m so ready to be racing again. I probably won’t update again before the weekend, so my next post will be a race report…hopefully a happy one.
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