Red River Gorge Days 3 and 4

Red River Gorge Days 3+4


After a full night's sleep, we awoke to another sunny Kentucky day. I had the intention of heading out early for a bike ride, but the temps were in the 20s, and would quickly rise to 50. By holding off for a few hours, I could really enjoy the warmth- so that's what I did. After enjoying a leisurely walk with Cody, who frolicked in the Red River, I found some popular routes on mapmyride.com and headed out on my own to climb some Kentucky Hills (which, compared to Michigan, were Mountains!).


The first exciting part of my ride was going through the Nada Tunnel on my bike. As you can see from the video, it's pitch black in there, and I didn't have the luxury of headlights on my bike! That was totally freaky-awesome. The next part of the ride was a ridiculous climb of 500 feet in just under 2 miles- OW! I don't think I've ever stayed over 250 watts for that long before! The road for this climb was barely a 2 lane road, with excellent pavement and more incredible scenery. However, there were no guard rails, and one wrong move would send me tumbling down the side of the Red River Gorge, splattering my parts onto the rocks below, so it made it tricky to enjoy the views as much as I would've liked. After turning around, I got to enjoy a screaming descent, hands gripping the brakes for dear life. Not quite as scary as the Keene descent in Lake Placid, or flying down Torrey Pines in San Diego, but still one of the scarier/thrilling moments I've had on two wheels.


The rest of the ride was just more gorgeous scenery, more crazy climbs (I almost had to walk my bike on a 28% grade hill!!), and hardly any cars. I didn't have my camera with me, so I don't have pictures to share, sorry :(


Once I finished my 62 mile ride, Ryan, Cody and I immediately set out to hike some more trails.

Day 4- Final Day
The first part of the day was spent on gravel roads. We finally found the only flat roads in Kentucky, and enjoyed flying around on our cyclocross bikes. 

Kentucky Gravel

That rock in the background looks excellent for rock climbers

After that, Ryan found another route to run that was considered 'HARD' for hikers. It started out easy enough, with a fun jaunt to a 'true' natural arch- one that had water running underneath.

A True Arch

Cody swimming under the arch
Cody was the closest to a triathlete today- she spent more
time in the water than I do in a typical week!

Yup, this was the 'trail'

From there, running started to look a lot more like hiking, at a slightly faster speed. The trail was GNARLY. Barely 2 feet wide, with only roots and rocks to gain footing on, and a sheer 100 foot cliff off to our right. One little trip on a root could send you into the gorge. Cody was like a little billy goat- her 4 dainty legs traipsed across the ground like a ballerina, never missing a step and always picking the safest, easiest path. When she's motivated (or when we're running super slow) she is the best trail-running partner ever.

Cliff edge into the river

Eventually, this particular trail got to be too much. We weren't running at all anymore, and we had only made it 3 of the 7 miles in. Ryan's ankle is also on the mend, so in the interest of preventing injury and death, we turned around, got back to the car, and found a new trail to try. The second trail started out much easier, and right around the time it got to be too much, we had run enough miles for the day and ran out of the gorge and back to the car. Overall, we ran 10.5 miles, but it took us 2 hours and 20 minutes!!!

A spot to run!

Cody- the most amazing trail running dog ever

EXHAUSTED! 

EXHAUSTED #2

The end of this run meant the end of our time in Kentucky. It was a wonderful 3 day weekend, and all 3 runners were spent. It was tough to get back to the daily grind, when our lives felt complete, training in the hills of Kentucky, living in a gorgeous cabin on a hillside, with everything we needed (except alcohol!!) right there....maybe someday....