Mon 10/26 The heart of Appalachia and Crossing into Virginia.

Monday 10/26  The heart of Appalachia  and Crossing into Virginia.

Well now I’m in the heart of the Appalachian mountains and today was the hardest day I’ve had on the tour thus far.  I climbed mountains for hours today at grades that make the bluff climbs look like sissy workouts.  Some of these passes I would go not 5 miles an hour up but 2 to 3 mph.  I love burning down the backside of the mountain, but you know that takes all of about 2 minutes and then I’m climbing again for the next 45.  Surprisingly I’m not that sore.  We’ll see if I can repeat that statement tomorrow.  I think the fall colors have reached their peak.  I catch all the beauty as I paper boy it up these climbs. Traffic is very low so sometimes I cross back and forth through the whole road when the grade gets to steep.  I took a pic of one of those signs at the top of the hill where they show a truck going  down a steep grade.  Out west, they tell you what the grade is.  Here there is no % mark.  I guess you just assume it’s going to be insanely steep.  At one point today I caught the cars on the descent and they were making me hit my breaks more than I wanted to.  On the way down I’m very focused because hitting just a little rock on a corner at 30mph could be very detrimental.  I swerved around on big whole in the road which would have trashed my bike had I been looking at the trees around me, but like I said, I’m pretty focused on the way down.

Breaks Interstate Park on the border of KY and VA was stellar sweet.  The Colorful trees just going forever.  The pictures don’t do it justice as they never do.  At this point when you are on top of the world, you completely forget the entire last 40 minutes of climbing at a gruelingly slow pace and you just stand in awe of such a creation.  I had 5 or 6 big climbs today and the last 8 miles were flat and small climbs which was a good end to the day. 

At the end of the day I was in a subway and overheard a couple talking about someone with stitches in their head and how they had a tumor removed.  The lady saw me paying close attention to their conversation and so I chimed in that I was just interested because I was a recent brain cancer survivor.  The individual had been without a tumor for 10 years and I couldn’t help but just think how much that sucks that  even though I survived the battle, the War might still not be over.  I left the subway and this just motivated me.  I set a pace much faster than I usually do, at it was the end of a 65 mile day.  I was just thinking about how people train for events.  I will continue to train and stay in top shape and stay healthy and strong, just incase it ever comes back and rears it’s ugly face in my life again, so I can beat it again.. 

I was cycling and my breakneck pace and it was starting to get darker out so I was looking for a place to camp and I passed a big grassy field with a shelter.  And it had spots that looked like greens.  I saw people playing golf and they waved.  So I pulled in and talked with them.  It was a father out playing with his son who is apparently a pretty good golfer.  I told him about how Andy and I were golfers in highschool.  The guys name was Ike and he said sure I could sleep under the shelter, but I’ll have to watch out for the bears.  There are black bears in the area, but black bears are seldomly looking for trouble.  There was a fridge that I tucked all my food into and I’ll be fine sleeping outside….and if I’m not, well you’ll hear about in in tomorrows entry : ).