I decided to think about the trip as a long mental training day - while it wasn't aerobic, driving ticked the boxes on repetitive and requiring focus. Turns out my trip mimicked an Ironman in a couple other respects - making good time for 90% of the trip, then the wheels came off and I slowed to a crawl in the final miles. I even threw out a little homage to Challenge Dubai, with a mid-ride reroute. So without further adieu, here is how the trip went by the numbers:
817 - Miles driven from Pigeon Forge, TN to Shelton, CT
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| Daybreak in Virginia |
14:05 - Duration of the trip in hours and minutes
3 - Extra Large Sheetz coffees consumed
234 - approximate number of times I wished this could be tapped and pumped directly to my car:
15 - minutes delayed at 4am, unthawing my Thule bike rack, to get the bikes mounted
3 - number of times I heard Pitbull wax poetic about his inability to pay rent
2 - times cycled through NPR broadcast as well as number of rants, yelling at NPR reports
8+7 - Trucks + Cars spun off the highway over the duration of the trip (7+4 is the number for Virginia alone, which is less a commentary on the ability of VA drivers and more of an indictment of V-DOT's ability to clear their roads)
1 - shady drifters wandering the highway in rural PA, which made me think of this clip and then by association this clip
8 - albums listened to in their entirety (bands included Counting Crows, Ada Pasternak, To the Moon Alice, Honey Tongue, Radiohead, Stereophonics, Modest Mouse, Mozart)
4 - Flying Pigs viewed (at the Ripley's mini-golf course)
5 - times I heard Bruno Mars (2.8 - approximate number of seconds Bruno Mars songs played)
3 - debates I had with myself (topics were the usefulness of the Performance Management Chart in Training Peaks - verdict: undecided; who should T-Swift collaborate with - verdict: tie between Eminem and the 60's version of Bob Dylan; teams that will make the Elite Eight - verdict: Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Wichita State, Gonzaga, Murray State, Duke, Wisconsin)
80 - minutes it took to drive the last 34.9 miles, from the NY-CT border
1 - driver who rolled down his window and yelled at me, after I blocked his path from flying past the line of traffic waiting to turn right off an exit ramp backed up due to an accident, at which point I rolled down my window, turned up Mozart's 1st Violin Concerto, smiled and pretended to conduct the performance. He stopped yelling.
