training at the 'wood

wednesday night after work i high-tailed it out to castlewood with the rush and set out to do a tough night of riding.

when the family and i were there on monday, i only had an hour to ride, so i made it a tough one, hitting 4 major climbs and several minor ones in a criss-crossed hairy-carry ride. i liked it so much that i decided doing it twice would be a killer training ride.

start: up love trail, cross ries road to grotpeter, climbing up the backside of cardiac.
take justin's trail down, making the 180 degree turn to go up cardiac.
again take justin's down, crossing keifer creek at the bottom and taking the field to the parking lots.
across the parking lot to lone wolf climb, taking lone wolf all the way through and at the bottom skirting the creek back to the bridge and keifer creek.
cross keifer creek and go up grotpeter backwards.
when arriving at ries road, do a 180 and head down justin's.
180 at the bottom of justin's and up ranger station.
when ranger station meets grotpeter, right turn and head down grotpeter to the finish at keifer creek.

repeat.

i did the first lap in 51 minutes, the second one in 53 minutes. darkness slowed my second lap, but lack of fitness slowed it more. all in all, i'm very pumped about my ride, as i think i really went well.

i'll use this loop again, as i think it is perfect training and hard enough to make any moutain course feel more mellow.