Food of the training gods

Who doesn't like to eat?  But doesn't it all taste oh so much better when you've earned it?  Mark and I were reminiscing the other day about some of our favorite training and meal combinations.

There was the Popsicle Ride - my first bike tour, our first together, in the Adirondacks.  This was the tour where I not only lost my fear of climbing hills, I discovered my absolute, transcending delight in going down hills, including hitting 50mph on the Keene descent out of Placid.  I grew to love to see this sign:

But my all-time favorite was this one:

Seeing this sign meant that the descent was both steep AND long.  Heaven.

But enough about descending.  The Popsicle Ride was a long day in the saddle in 90+ degree heat that included a 4-mile long steady uphill.  Granny gear the whole way, staring fixedly at the Mavic sticker on Mark's hub in front of me going around and around and around.  Anything except looking up to see how far we had to go.  But eventually we made it to the top, to find our marvelous tour leaders pulling us over to feed us ice cold popsicles.  The perfect reward for that climb.

The Hallelujah Ride was a cold, wet, windy, miserable experience training for my first Ironman.  I've written about it before.  But my food-related memories are eating my first Hot Pocket (any hot food would be divine on a day like that) and drinking coffee without sugar for the first time.  Again, anything hot.

The Wings Ranble.  Recently Mark and I discovered the best wings in Northern Virginia.  A couple of weekends ago, we took ourselves out to Purcellville and tooled around the lovely horse country on our bikes.  But what we were really out there for was Boodacades Smokehouse BBQ for their Thair wings.

(Team Zers - Mark and I are working up a cue sheet for team rides out that way in Winter & Spring.  I have no doubt we'll end up at Boodacades for some post ride nourishment.)  And as a bonus, just around the corner is the Catoctin Creek Distillery where we stocked up on our favorite local whiskey.

Someone called us the bike whisperers the other day.  But everything we know, we've learned the hard way.  For instance, we used to go for long rides with water and a couple of muesli bars.  And we wondered why we bonked ten miles from the end.  Anyone who has received one of our "nutrition lectures" may be surprised to read that, but now you know there is experience behind the lectures!

Another M&M special was to underdress for the weather.  One Spring ride early on in our cycling career sure looked as if it was going to be nice, but it turned out to be drizzly and chilly and we had shorts and no jacket.  40 miles in, an hour to go and we were utterly miserable.  We rode through this cute little town of about five buildings, including a mill.  I happened to look over at a general store type building and saw the magic word - "Coffee."  Our frozen fingers clawed at our brakes, and we carefully eased our stiff muscles off our bikes, hoping for a little relief from the caffeine god.

When we entered the Locke Store in Millwood, VA,

we discovered that instead we had accidentally arrived at the promised land.  Not only was the coffee great, but they had soup, sandwiches, quiche, pies, salads, pasta.  All made in the store with high quality local ingredients, and innovative to boot. Plus racks of wine, cheese, crackers, cookies and other tempting goods.  I think at that first serendipitous visit, we ate pretty much everything that was hot.

Of course, we had no clue where we were and all I could remember was that there was a mill.  It took another couple of years before we found it again, but we've been regulars on any ride out that way ever since and have taken great joy in introducing many friends to its secret delights.

Just like food cooked outside (preferably while camping) tastes better, so does anything that rescues you from the depths of despair while out biking.  What are your favorite food & training memories?