Douthat State Park

Man, I thought Big South Fork Was Big! Douthat really kicked my butt. I definitely underestimated this Epic! Granted it was 87 degrees (mini heatwave for April) and I attempted to follow the Mid Mountain Mama XXC race course, which does go outside the park. I can't remember the last time I used my granny gear, let alone so much. I was using it 40 minutes into my first climb (Stony Run) and quite a few times after that! I did use Stony Run for Threshold training and probably burned up too many matches, I got a 3rd out of 40 on Strava, so in a way it was worth it. I got almost 30 minutes of threshold in before I began to to sputter. It was the most so far this year and all in one chunk, not two or three intervals. I paid for it later though, boy did I pay! But the DH's were equally long and sometimes brutal and treacherous. I had to awkwardly negotiate more than a few tight switchbacks with steep consequences!

There were orange arrows on the ground, that I believe are for that race. It crosses itself and runs along the Middle Mountain ridge twice (best I can tell) I was toast well before this, so I dropped down Blue Suck Falls Trail. I rested there for a bit.
Tammy met me at the beach, with food and beachwear, so I could nap and refuel in the sun.

Check out the local IMBA club at http://www.roanokeimba.org/ 

They have a link to this map http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/documents/douthat.pdf (Became a 404) Try http://www.americasstateparks.org/park_maps/douthat-parkmap_trails.pdf
I got in touch with Carter Shumaker for the next day's ride, through their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/roanokeimba
More on that later...