Mitchell Report

Left PHL around 4:20am on Saturday and arrived at Pinecrest in the afternoon of a beautiful day.

Homemade egglant parm for dinner with a side of angel air pasta. A little inspirational Tour de France video before bed to end a long day of travel.

Slept in on Sunday, then did a little gardening and tried to chill out...or what passes for chilling out with my brother the perpetual motion machine! We got the corn planted and the fence up for the tomatoes.

We also spotted a bear strolling through the back yard, too, but I didn't manage to get a picture of it. Oh yes, we also spotted a black snake that was probably 4 feet long, too.  (They are like garter snakes, one of the good ones.)



Home base for the weekend...

Monday morning Jeff shuttled us sown to Spartanburg where we lined up for the 6:30 start

F at Tom's Campground, mile 75. Lookin' good and fresh! (As the rest of the 103 mile race is uphill, they refer to this as "the half-way point."

Me and my (second?) can of coke at the finish.  Glad to be done!

Note the clouds rolling in.  I got changed and not long after that, F showed up.  She got changed, got some of the famous hot tomato soup and bread and we headed to stand in line for the hour+ bus ride back to Marion where all the cars were parked.  Just as we were getting onto the bus, it started to rain.  So on the bus ride down, we saw many folks who had not yet finished, struggling up the final miles in the rain.  There was even  a little bit of sleet in there, too. Everyone on that bus was sure glad that they were finished and dry and NOT still riding in the cold rain.

F was only about 30 minutes behind me!  She did an awesome job!

Tracy was dropped by her friends, and I ended up pulling her about 50+ miles. Also gave her some water when she ran out at one point, so if you need an "in" at Clemson, let me know, someone there owes me big time!

Perfect weather, no flats, no mechanicals, no cramps that couldn't be fixed with electrolytes, everything went about as smooth as you could ask for.  Oh yea, we also got one of the luxury charter buses for the ride back to Marion, not one of the rickety old school buses!  Score.

Tuesday morning, it was another early wake-up and we were on the road by about 5:15 for the trip back to PA.  F chilled at 425 for about 45 minutes before catching the train into town and the Bolt bus back to Brklyn.

All in all, a pretty successful trip. Cross another one off the list.
And a big thumbs up to Jeff for doing that ride in 6:24!  Impressive!