(post-blogged on 6/1/2005)
This is the start of my trip down to Blacksburg, VA to embark on this stupidly big deal that I've been training for for more than 4 months, The Mountains of Misery. To preface this - the next few blog entries, I have post-blogged them on June 1st. Today, I woke up completely miserable - full force head & chest cold. I could barely breath, I had a sore throat, my head was pounding, nose was completely stuffed up, and hacking up mouthfulls of lung chowder - not a good morning to set out and drive 6+ hours down to Blacksburg. I was even more fearful of the possibility that I may not be able to even participate in the Mountains of Misery. The challenge was already there - It IS a brutal climb, of many sorts...about 5 mountains..and the last - the most brutal. I may not be able to finish the thing even if I was in perfect health - but fuck no...I happen to get this fricken cold on the ONLY crucial weekend this year.

Storm Highway

So be it. I was already packed, ready to rock n roll, tossed the last of my shit in the car and popped a few more non-drowsy cold pills, my coffee, a ton of water and I was off. It was a beautiful day to begin with - and the traffic was not too bad, I stopped a few times to visit the little boys room (was trying to hydrate, from cold meds..also in preparation for the next day). Took me a while, but I finally got down to Blacksburg, checked into the hotel, registered with the MoM crew...got my "race packet" - I was now to be #39... Went up to my room, layed a few things out, ran to the store to get a gallon of gatorade and a few provisions, came back to the hotel, went to the Bike Expo, bought a few things, picked up a few pamphlets on some new centuries...grabbed all the freebies...bumped into a crapload of people I know from other centuries and training.

Then went to this all you can eat pasta thing with a guest speaker, Mike Magnusen (had him Autograph my copy of his book) - he was quite amusing, he was also to participate in the ride the next day - was really nice to talk with him. Cool guy. I sat at this table with 4 guys who were doing this "for training", because in the next couple of weeks...they were going to be participating in the Race Across America, this totally sick but cool ride/race (literally race 24/7 to get across the USA...in about a week...they bike all day all night....they doing it as a team, to raise $$ for a Kidney transplant awareness program (one of the team members riding is an actual kidney transplant recipient). They all live up in NoVA, and we've seen each other on our training rides - small world.

Finished 4 plates of pasta, salad and headed up - was too sick to do anything else..I layed out all my stuff for the morning, qued up coffee, and carb push for morning. Fell asleep watching of all things "Pretty Woman" - oh barf!

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