Camped Out

So last weekend was an NOBC training camp up at Percy Quinn state park in Mississippi. I had been looking forward to a little quality time with the bike, and the only thing I was worried about was the threat of cold weather. Then again, that's pretty much what I always worry about between November and March. I think that some of the things that I like the most about cycling are the road trips like this where you can put other concerns aside for a couple of days and focus on the fun stuff, and with no internet access at the cabins, that was going to be easier than usual. Keith A. and I drove up Friday night to meet a few of the other "campers," although more riders would be driving up early Saturday morning for the first of three scheduled rides. After settling into a nice cabin with six beds, two baths, and a struggling heating system, we sat around the laptop and watched "The Hard Road," ate whatever we could get our hands on, and finally turned in for the night.

I awoke early on Saturday and wandered out into the cold morning air for a little walk. By the time I got back, Pat had the coffee going. It was still quite chilly - somewhere in the mid-30s - by the time everyone started to assemble for the morning ride. We had intentionally planned to leave around 9:00 so we could avoid the coldest part of the day, but it was still difficult to decide what to wear. The sky was clear, so it was definitely going to warm up a lot, but there in the park with the trees still blocking the sun, it was still pretty cold. The plan was to ride around 40 miles, have some lunch, and then do a longer ride of 60+ miles in the afternoon. That was the plan. Unfortunately, none of us really knew much about the roads in the area, so Pat mapped something out and we rolled the dice on the traffic and road quality. We had about a dozen riders, and as you'd expect from a club like ours, a wide range of fitness levels was represented. That resulted in lots of stops to regroup, which was handy since we often weren't all that sure about where we were anyway. We ended up doing a big loop through Liberty, MS. After regrouping there, we headed back on a state highway that featured lots of logging trucks. It was busy enough to be uncomfortable, but at least the road surface was smooth and there were eighteen inches or so of shoulder. Just as we were leaving Liberty we passed a sign that read, "McComb 20 miles." I looked down at my computer and knew that our 40 mile ride was going to be more like 50. It was.

So after some down time around the grill, we were ready to head out for the afternoon ride around 2:30 or so. It was much, much warmer for this one, but we knew we wouldn't be able to get in the 60+ miles we'd originally planned without getting caught in the dark. Again, our route was somewhat on the "experimental" side, but this time we were lucky to avoid any high-traffic roads. These narrow little country roads are definitely my favorites, regardless of their road surfaces, and with the challenging terrain and lingering effects of the morning's ride, this one really felt like a workout. A number of riders did shorter rides, but there were maybe six or seven of us who ended up with 45 miles or so. I was particularly impressed with a few of the riders in this group, and concluded that Kenny's coaching efforts over the last few months were definitely paying off.

We got back to the cabin right at dusk. I doubt we could have gotten in five more miles before dark, so that had worked out perfectly. Saturday night there were two king cakes, two or three pies (and whipped cream!), six or seven bottles of wine, stuffed pasta, spinach salad, etc., etc. I did my best, but we never quite got around to that last bottle of wine. Of course, amid all of that there was some more serious talk about training and racing, team tactics, and all of the usual training camp stuff. I could elaborate, but of course my teammates would then have to kill me....

So Sunday morning was our final training ride, and we headed out in generally the same direction as the prior morning, but this time with an alternate return route that we hoped would be both less busy and adequately paved. Naturally we took a wrong turn at the farthest point from the start, but it added only a few bonus miles to the day's ride. This time there was a little leadout practice and some faster sections. The alternate road turned out to be excellent and I doubt anyone's legs were begging for more. The group split up a few times, and some riders did shorter rides, but most of the group stuck together for the first couple of hours. With around twelve miles to go things picked up pretty good as we headed for the last major intersection and there was another split. We stopped at the next intersection, with maybe seven miles left to go, to regroup, but after a few minutes I looked at Kenny and said, "something's wrong, they should have been here by now." As the words were coming out of my mouth, my nearly dead cellphone rang. I could see that it was Migon who was calling, but my battery was so weak I couldn't really understand what she was saying. Since they should have been only a minute or so behind us, I was a little worried, although I could at least tell from the tone of her voice that it wasn't an emergency. As Kenny was trying to call her back on his phone, a truck came by and told us they were just a quarter mile behind. It turned out that some redneck had come by in the opposite direction and thrown a Big Gulp (lime flavor, by the way) at them, solidly nailing Judith's upper arm. Luckily nobody went down, but Judith was pretty badly bruised and Ed had already called the police by the time we arrived. Why do people do stuff like that?

Anyway, the weekend was a lot of fun, the weather was fantastic, and since my legs were still feeling a little sore this morning I didn't feel too bad about sleeping late because of the nasty rainy weather we had. Oh, yeah. There are a few photos on the NOBC website.