16 mile marathon training run/2nd place at Asheville on Bikes(AOB) tourist trap alley cat! (best day ever!)

Easily one of the top 5 days in all my life. No kidding. Lets start with the weather. It was 50 by 10am! When I started my run at noon it was near 60! Shorts and shirt sleaves weather, which is what I wore. I met my buddy Jeff Hope and we headed up the trails above UNCA, then down to Beaver lake and around. We parted ways at Jus Runnin where I stopped in to get some water and thanks Norm for my new Nikes, which are working out great. I then headed up town mountain and finished off the run with 35 minutes at marathon pace.

Now the real fun began! 10 minutes after returning from my run, Yoko and I got our town bikes out(mine is a viscount converted to a fixed gear circa 1976 I built up at hearns a few years ago) and headed downtown to the asheville on bikes alley cat bike race. The weather was absolutely unbelievable! Mid 60's by this point. We got there with not quite enough time before the race started to get food. Yikes! I need calories! But its all good, I had a gel on my run, and we were going to have to drink a beer somewhere for points I was sure. So there are about 20 or 30 teams all decked out as tourists on all different kinds of sweet bikes. It was amazing. The organizers give us our packets containing all of our destinations and bonus point possibilities and we were all off in different directions! We had a good plan from the start, or should I say, Yoko had a good plan. My mind wasnt working so well, I needed food! Long story shortened, we had an absolutely great time riding all over the city and beyond on such a beautiful day. People were out everywhere enjoying the weather. There were a couple of brain teasers that I had no chance of doing given that my brain works sporadically to begin with, and less so when I am bonking hardcore. But Yoko did an amazing job with those, and we got all of the bonus points! All told we raced around for over 2 hours and did nearly everything on the list. I even went up to the Grove Park Inn and got a picture at the big fire place. We just kept looking at each other and exclaiming what fun we were having and how great the weather was! We came on back to Asheville Pizza and had a nice dinner and waited on awards. What do you know? We got 2nd place! Thank you AOB, keep up the good work! Look forward to the next event you guys put on..