Training Log Archive: Charlie

Rhonda's morning class. Felt like it was doing me some good.

Event: WCOC Gay City State Park
 

Red Course A at Gay City. Nice courses by George W. Started off ok, but quickly had problems with my back and with the hip I fell on Thursday. Only one really bad control, got too far R on #5 and got past it, had to waste a bit of time relocating. No track because the Garmin discharged itself. A mystery why it does that sometimes.

Nice to see all the old friends there.

Red B Course. Any zip was gone by the time I started this, but not so bad getting places. Just slow. One notable loss on #3, where I went R around the green (left would have been better) then lost time checking out other knolls in the area. Probably at least 2 min lost there. A little slow getting to 4, but more or less headed to it all the way. Bad route to the finish, heading S rather than N. I hear going straight across wasn't bad, but I wasn't about to try it.

Red Course C

Worst of the three. Very sore by now, and pretty distracted. Even lost time on the control I had been to before, #1, leaving the start in the wrong direction for a few steps, and then not seeing it until I got to it. Slow to 2, but hit it just fine, then drifted badly on the way to 3, hitting the stream well left of 4. Yikes. 5 was ok, if slow. Had trouble following a straight line to 6. Thought I was more or less in the right place and PG showed up. Unfortunately, he said he didn't know where he was, and it turned out I didn't either. A bit of wandering and then happened across it. Very slow to 7 (more or less straight) and slower to 8, through the woods passing by 2. Around to the right to finish, which is certainly slow, and I was barely moving by then.

Maze A course. These are fun, but I was sore and distracted, not going fast, not comfortable, and distracted enough that I mispunched. These are a lot of fun, though.

Red A - Splits

Red B - Splits

Red C - Splits

Maze A - Splits

Travel day today. At the airport in Ljublana waiting for our flight. Walking around town was pleasant, alternately sunny, overcast, spitting. Shortly after we got back to our room it was pouring again, and did so all night. Quite a rainy summer in Europe.

Around the old town of Ljublana including a visit to the large castle on the hill, lots of pretty buildings.

Through the center of the old town and west to Tivoli Park, very nice. Uphill into the forest west of the park, where we saw a lot of forestry going on. Clean up from the massive ice storms in February. Huge damage, whole reentrants filled with broken trees. For quite a while we followed a path that had tree identification markers in Slovenian and Latin. Learned a few things, like redič hrasti is red oak. A very cool park, and interesting to see the forestry going on.

C • I bought a pair of running ... 9

Last cycling day of the trip. We had about a one hour van transfer, and the started out in cold weather, with a light mist off and on. After about an hour or so we stopped in the small town of Kostanjevika Na Krki on an island in the very swollen Sava, had some coffee. While we were there the rain picked up quite a bit. Leaving town we crossed the wooden bridge, apparently a bit slipperier, as a couple of people fell in front of me, and when I tried to avoid them, I fell hard on my right side. Damn! Apparently some extra interest value for the onlookers, because I came to rest under the bridge rail, not far from plunging in backwards. I suppose I might have been suspended from my pedals, but not really at risk of falling in. I was pretty banged up, though, bruised shoulder and hip where I hit, but not so bad I couldn't get back on the bike. Another 10 k to lunch, by which time it was pouring. Slovenian waitresses are so friendly and accommodating! A good lunch, not really able to dry out, but more comfortable, and then back in the pouring rain for the last 8 or 10 k to the hotel for the night, in the old castle of Otocec. Very elegant! Kind of sore. Will pack up the bikes tonight, maybe before dinner if we are on the ball.

C • Oof 4

Woke up in Ptuj to a steady rain. Time to test the rain gear. Turns out my Patagonia rain jacket is not that great. Front pack is pretty lame, too, despite looking pretty water resistant. Rain pants, on the other hand, worked fine, although they are too big and hard to keep up when I am not sitting on the bicycle seat. Mostly a flattish ride today. Brakes a little iffy in the rain, so I was not pushing the pace on the downhills, and we were also trying to keep the group more or less together. 20 km to the first stop at a coffee shop, where the waitress was quite overwhelmed trying to supply us with cappuccino and hot chocolate. A longish stop, because folks were pretty soaked and not eager to get back out there. Then another 20 km over one fairly good sized hill to get to the spa town of Rogaska Slatina, where we were very kindly welcomed at the Kaiser restaurant. The waiter brought us coat racks, extra table cloths and napkins to dry ourselves and our stuff, and then we had a leisurely lunch, for me mushroom soup and mushroom pasta, as I am in a big mushroom phase, but plenty of other stuff. Most of us seem to be drinking Radler at lunch, a mixture of beer and grapefruit juice. Odd, but kind of nice. Again a long stop as we were pretty soaked and it was kind of cold outside and warm inside, but got it together for the last 20 k of the day, along the Croatian border, stopping to look at a pretty abandoned looking border station, but not attempting to cross. Slovenia is in the EU and the Schengen agreement, and so crossing to other EU countries is easy, but Croatia is not, so there is a border control. Eventually to our hotel at the Amon golf resort. It would have been easy to get a tee time, but I can't imagine the balls would travel very far. Things are pretty wet.

C • Pretty close to Zagreb 4

C • Pioggia 4

From our hotel Dvorec at Jeruzalem in the wine country, on a few rolling hills down to Ormoz, near the border with Croatia, stopped for coffee, then worked our way through cornfields and residential areas, some main roads, but not many hills. Finally arrived in the old town of Ptuj, on the Drava. Very nice. Easy day in a way, but the pace of it was hard on my bruised seat area. There were several turns and the protocol is that the person nearest the front stops and is the flag for the others. This was a good setup for some interval work, flagging the turns, then zipping on ahead to catch up to be in a position to flag again.

Worst sleeping night of the trip. We were sleeping hard at 10:30, got a phone call from a friend who didn't know we were away, and that was it. I was up until 3. Being awakened when I am sleeping deeply really throws me off. My fault for leaving the phone on. I'll try to do better than that tonight.

Walking around the old town of Ptuj. Had a nice salad with grilled sliced chicken breast for lunch. Very good, and things like this are pretty cheap in Slovenia. Tab for two orders plus two glasses of Slovenian wine: 14 €. Then we did a little desultory shopping at a fairly well appointed bike store, then hiked up the hill to see the castle. Nice views of town and of the Drava and the landscape beyond.

We met for a leisurely stroll through the old town with Sasho, our guide, explaining history ancient and recent. Ptuj is the oldest Slovenian town. We saw the round tower by the river where the Turks were repelled, perhaps around 1500. Stone cannonballs still embedded in the wall. More recently, in 1991 when Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia there was a battle at the bridge in Ormoz near where we had coffee this morning.

Eventually arrived at the excellent Gostilna Ribič next to the pedestrian bridge across the Drava. This had been promised as the best restaurant of the trip and it did not disappoint. No ordering from a menu - we were just served. Six courses, four different Slovenian wines from the local area, everything wonderful. Small portions, elegantly prepared and presented. Appetizer was two kinds of rolled up ham, one around a horseradish sauce, one around vegetables, a small dollop of liver pate, some pickled mushroom pieces, a tiny lettuce leaf. Then mushroom soup, the meatiest and most flavorful of the trip. Third was pasta, penne in a mushroom cream sauce, more mushroom than cream. Delicious. The first of two meat courses, a chicken leg poised on end in a small bed of polenta, with a few tiny pieces of prune. Then small pieces of beef, stuffed with vegetables. Finally dessert, a small scoop of passion fruit sorbet in a small mound of some powdered substance, not sure what, along with a small cup of panna cotta with a bit of kiwi sauce on top. Whew! Very fine.