On Monday, I drove about 40 miles to
Springdale, Utah, at the entrance to
Zion National Park to preview Wednesday's 40K (25 mile) time trial course.
The course is an "out and back" along the Virgin River on Hwy 9, starting in Springdale. It has a few short steep hills (especially on the way back), with the first half mostly downhill, and the second half mostly uphill...but only about 600 feet of total climbing. It's a beautiful course with plenty of red rock buttes and mesas all around. Today I enjoyed the scenery, because on Wednesday I won't be seeing much of anything except the road right in front of my front tire.
The main issue on the course was the wind....it was howling (probably around 25 mph or so). I had a major tailwind pushing me along the first half of the course - it only took me 28 minutes (avg speed nearly 27 mph). But the second half was another story - with the hills and the huge headwind it took me 50 minutes (at 15 mph). Hopefully, the wind won't be blowing quite so hard on Wednesday's time trial. Oh, well...we all have to ride in the same wind.
After riding the TT course, I rode up into Zion National Park to enjoy the scenery. The ride in the park is incredibly beautiful - like Yosemite, except with a palette of reds and yellows instead of grays, and pinion pine and cottonwoods, instead of firs and cedars. And no cars! They're banned on the road into the park (only propane powered shuttle buses allowed), which allowed me to sit up and take most of the pictures below while riding the bike. Enjoy!
Tomorrow, the real competition starts, with a 5K (3.1 mile) hill climb.
Speaking of competition...next year I might enter the 10K run. I checked the results from today's 10K and my time from the September 30th Lion's Club 10K would have been good enough for a Bronze medal!
Scenes from Monday's ride in Zion National Park...don't ya just hate Monday's!
