Veteran NORSA members Adam Domanski and Alan Stewart along with Brian Stynes and his girlfriend Julie (now also a NORSA member) returned Sunday evening from an awesome evening of racing, paddling, camping and hiking in the beautiful NC mountains.
Friday evening the crew left Chapel hill after picking up Brian and Julie and headed west to Canton, NC. Arriving late we pitched our tents in the back of the parking lot of the race venue for the 2008 Lake Logan Triathlon (Olympic distance) that Adam and myself were competing in the next morning. We awoke very early to music playing and parking cars slowly creeping toward our makeshift campsite. By the time the cars filled the lot, Adam and I were headed to the check-in after scarfing down a few honey buns. The race start was at 7:00am and we were all ready to go and waiting by the lake with time to spare.
The race went without a hitch for both Adam and myself which was a relief since this was our last planned tri before Ironman Louisville. I saw Adam at T1 about 1 min behind me and then he was right behind me on the bike in the beginning which caused me to pedal faster. On the run I saw him again right after the turnaround at the 3 mile mark which caused me to run faster. We finished almost exactly 1 min apart and both feeling really strong. I finished in 2:39:01 and Adam in 2:40:09. Full results here. Everyone said that Lake Logan was a great venue and we definately agree.
We didn't hang around long after the race and had planned to drive further west on sun and run the Nantahala river on sunday but we were feeling really good so we decided to just go for it and were on the river by 2pm on Saturday. Adam had his ww kayak and Brian and Julie and I rented duckies. We took our time down the river stopping and playing wherever possible.
Saturday night we camped on a dirt road near the put in and in the morning left with plans to check out Mt. Mitchell state park on the way home. On the way we ran into a road block on the blue ridge parkway so we stopped at a picnic area and hiked up a trail called craggy pinnacle to a small meadow summit. Lots of butterflies and blueberries kept us pretty busy.
Another successful weekend in the outdoors. Tomorrow begins the last week of summer camp for me and countdown to Ironman Louisville is T-miunus 28 days.
