Perhaps the most boring YouTube video to date but I wanted to play around with Google Earth in preparation of documenting the Turkey Burn AR.  This is the GPS timestamp of our training brick on Google Earth.

While Super Stu was out doing his 4th Tough Mudder, the rest of Team Disoriented had our first training brick in over 3 weeks.  You see, the old man blew out his Achilles tendon and hasn’t been able to run since.  It was good to get back out and be active again.  We started at 4:40PM and since it gets dark really early now, we started off canoeing because honestly canoeing up a creek in the dark kinda freaks me out.  We went 1/2 mile up Rocky Creek against the current before turning around and heading across open water to Rocky Bayou bridge.  I like to mix creek paddling with open water paddling because going against current up a narrow creek  helps us work on control of the canoe.  The first time we went up Rocky Creek we ran into at least four overhanging trees.  And do you know what likes to live in overhanging trees, big ass spiders.  Each time we ran into a tree, 3 or 4 spiders would drop into the canoe as we worked on dislodging ourselves.  Ever try dancing in a canoe to get away from big ass spiders?  It’s not easy.  Needless to say, we quickly became much better at avoiding overhanging trees.  The trip to and from the bridge was uneventful as we’ve become much better at paddling a straight line.  The first few times out we zigged and zagged across the bayou.  Using our new kayak paddles instead of canoe paddles has really made a difference in control as well as speed.

Once we finished the canoe section, we grabbed our bikes and headed to Rocky Bayou State Park to ride the trails.  I wanted to ride them at night so that we could test out our new bike lights.  Night trail riding is a lot of fun and we only crashed once.  Once we finished the trails, we were hoping to do another 10 miles of street riding but it was really dark and we don’t have tail lights yet, so we wisely cut the ride short.  Back at the transition area, we dropped off the bikes and completed the night with a 5 mile run.  In the end, not having done much in the last 3 weeks, I would say it went okay.   But, I’m a little nervous about being in condition for the 12-hour Turkey Burn AR in 27 days.