After my rain-soaked descent of Thunder Ridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway, my daughter Lauren, who lives in Richmond, returned with me for Round Two, two days later.
She runs. We drove to base of the hill and started together for what would be a slow climb for both of us. Lauren ran uphill until her Garmin said six miles, then turned around and ran back. She climbed 1,400 feet then descended.
I rode to the top of the ridge and a little past the top. It was a slow twelve miles. I kept checking my Garmin and keeping my heart rate down so I could make the climb in 90-plus-degree heat. The elevation gain was more than 3,400 feet. (1,047 meters)
The descent was so long that my neck started to get tired. The road is smooth and most of the turns are wide sweepers with only a few hairpins and even those are not really tight. Most of the way down I was either side of 40 mph. The grade is averages 5 percent with a few steep places. The fastest I went was 48mph but that was on just a few of the steeper straight stretches.
In my usual way, I was one of the slowest on the climb. On the longest uphill segment, 19.93km, I was an hour slower than the fastest guy in my age group. Bernie Sanders (no kidding) climbed the hill in 1:17. I did in 2:19. Apparently, Bernie went down another way. He has no time on any of the descent segments. On all of the descent segments, I am the fastest by 20-30 seconds.
What goes up must come down. Unless it's Bernie.
Lauren and I talked the whole 2.5-hour drive to the climb. On the way back, we were both exhausted and subdued. But after an hour we got food, felt better, and figured out how to bring peace to the Middle East as we drove back to Richmond.
