Generally speaking, I don’t approve of failure through not trying. If I go out, give something my all, and then find out I can’t do it — fair enough. I need to train more/work harder/grow taller/read books/sleep less… whatever. Tried + fail = ok. Room to grow. Applies to all facets of life really. On the flip side, failing at something due to complete inaction? Problematic. I accept that I can’t be good at everything (or even, really, a lot of things), but I can’t accept that until I’ve at least tried it. Could I be a scuba diver? Maybe not… but until I take a course, strap on the gear, and hop in the water… how will I know?

This “guiding principle to life” is why the latest failure on Old La Honda really got in my head. I knew I could ride that hill. I’d dominated (or at least limped through) bigger and bad-assier hills than OLH. Multiple times. In sometimes ridiculous weather conditions. How is it possible that this one stupid road bump continued to elude me?! Often through no fault of my own! I steamed over it for about a week. Grumbled, bitched, kvetched… whatever you wanna go with. Until Julie (probably annoyed at said whining) says to me — “Do something about it. Let’s ride it.”

…

…

…

Like alone? Without SAG and team encouragement? Give up on my “doomed to fail at Old La Honda forever” posture and… just… ride it?! Well shit. Now there’s an idea! We could just pick a route. Map one out designed specifically to ensure OLH climbing success. Short warm up and then straight to the hill (no “extra” climbs to break down the legs early). Down 84 and then another short cooldown back to the start. This could work! I know how to make route sheets!!

And so I did. I hopped my tail over to MapMyRide, picked a known starting area and mapped out a ~30mile loop designed purely around climbing the “Bay Area Hill Standard.”  The following Monday was Labor Day, so Julie and I decided to make the most of a long holiday weekend and met up around 9am to get ‘er done. We rolled out pretty casually, and took our time warming up the legs through the back rounds of Menlo Park and into Woodside. The roads were surprisingly empty for a holiday weekend (maybe everyone else was at the beach? Or BBQ-ing?), and the weather was perfect — sunny with just a few puffy clouds; warm without being hot.

By the time we hit Portola Road, I was feeling pretty good. My chest was bothering me (yet), and you really couldn’t ask for a better day to be on the bike. By the time we hit the base of Old La Honda, I was raring to go. Julie and I stopped at the bottom, Gu’d up, and then agreed to meet at the top. I took a deep breath (or as close as I could come to it), clipped in and started spinning.

The climb was surprisingly easy… which I think makes sense compared to how much it had obviously been built up in my mind. Now, I’m not saying that it wasn’t work, because it was. There are bastardly punchy sections of that hill that exist solely to make you pop kidneys. There are unexpected switchbacks that make you wonder if there is, in fact, a top to this thing. There are, in some cases, couples riding side by side in matching rainbow jerseys just fast enough to stay ahead of you… but just slow enough to make you think you could get by if you tried. For the record, those suck. I spiked my heart rate at least three times trying to pass, or passing and then getting lapped by, a couple wearing rainbow argyle. I really hate climbing directly behind someone… but couldn’t quite seem to break the pace with these folks. Grrrr!

For extra bonus fun, sometimes there are fail route sheets. As it turns out, if someone were to accidentally include the west segment of Old La Honda in the route, it might make you think that the hill was 3 miles longer than it actually is. This in turn might make you aggressively start throwing down GU, spitting wrappers on passerbys… 1/8th of a mile before the summit. And by “might”, I mean “did.” I made the fail route sheet, thought I was 3-3.5 miles from the end and, feeling kinda tired, decided I should proactively take down some carbs. A couple passing me on the left (who, thankfully, didn’t actually get hit by my spit) chatted me up as they went by. On finding out this was my first time climbing OLH, they congratulated me on finishing the climb. I yell back (as they start to pull away) that they should hold their congrats until I actually finish… only to find them at the top, just around the next switchback. Who knew?!

I’d like to say my feeling of finally cresting Old La Honda was euphoric – I mean, I’d stressed about it enough that it should have been – but I was so dang surprised to actually have hit the summit that my first reaction was “Damnit! I could’ve had a better time if I’d know the top was that close!” About five minutes later, the joy-part set in and I stood around grinning at random people (and telling them all about my “first time”) while I waited for Julie to finish her climb. Thankfully, most cycling folks at least remember being noobs once upon a time — and they bore my enthusiasm graciously.

Julie hit the top maybe 10 minutes later. After a quick recovery and “wow, how awesome are we for doing this unsupported?” chat session, we rolled out again to enjoy our descent down 84 — which was surprisingly technical! Hwy 84 is supposed to be the “safe descent” compared to coming back down OLH… so apparently I’m never trying that idea!

The remaining cooldown miles flew by, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what they were without looking at the route sheet. I’d done what I set out to do, and that was what frikkin’ mattered. I remember that we had a great rest of the ride and that the weather stayed gorgeous. And even if that wasn’t 100% true at the time, it’s definitely how I’ll remember it. I mean, my lung issues held themselves in check for a day, I finally conquered the Beast — and did the entire thing in the saddle; no stopping. Pretty damn good for a Monday.

Holiday OLH Ride

Randomly occurring chest tightness that kept me from being able to get “over the top” when trying to pull in a deep breath. Food, allergens, stress, work and exercise do not seem to have a direct correlation. Occurs at any time of the day without warning.

This description quickly spawned a battery of increasingly ridiculous (and ultimately useless) tests with freakishly normal results.

• Assigned on a whim inhalers: Worthless. Given as a result of basically no testing, and, other than fueling one fairly awesome climb, had no impact on anything (other than a weird feeling on my teeth).
• Chest xray: clear. No pneumonia or other terribleness.
• Skin-stab allergy test: I am allergic to nothing.
• Sub-cutaneous (stick shit UNDER your skin) allergy test: I am still allergic to nothing. Except histamine. But everyone’s allergic to that.
• Pulmonary function test: I have “a really gorgeous set of lungs.” Yep. Someone actually said that to me, and it was exactly as creepy as it sounds. Lung tech may or may not have asked me to do extra breaths just so he could see results in the 90th-plus percentile again. Must be sad to only ever test old people.
• Weird stretching exercises to expand my chest muscles: good for me (as I’m terribly inflexy), but offered no measurable result for breathing.

In the end, the doctors never figured anything out, and my issues eventually (weeks later) subsided. Personally, I think I strained my chest wall in a core class and noticed tightness issues whenever I really thought about taking in a deep breath.  My mom swears I was having panic attacks (a theory on which I still call bullshit! Other than the one day with ashes, I never even came close to hyperventilating!). I can say, for sure, that the breathing problems made most of last summer season’s rides challenging. Some were better than others, but none were great — which was a really tough pill to swallow in my first season as team support. I muddled through the best I could though, “taking one for the team” to hang back with anyone having a bad day — and did successfully complete most rides.

Speaking of, is anyone else ready to get back to the ride posts? Me too. On it!

Last August’s Old la Honda ride was, sadly, no exception. I show up, ready and raring to “tame the beast” and get myself geared to head out in short order.  Snag a quick briefing on the ride, meet up with my team, and roll onto Foothill. I remember noticing that the world smelled faintly like barbecue… or campfires… but didn’t think much of it. We were going to tackle Old la Honda!! Finally! What did cookouts have to do with me?

In case you aren’t good at anticipating my heavy-handed foreshadowing, I’ll tell you now – the answer is: a lot. Less than two miles into the ride, I started having trouble. I was shouting “GAAAAP!!” and gasping like a fish out of water pretty much immediately. On Foothill! Possibly the flattest and fastest piece of pavement in a 20 mile radius! My coach dropped back to check on me.

“What’s going on there Jamie?”

“I dunno… can’t seem to breathe. I guess my lung issues are flaring up again.”

“Well, you did hear that Santa Cruz is on fire, right?”

*blankstareface*

“…yeeeaah. So there’s a giant wildire going on not that far from here. It won’t impact our route or anything, but there’s a lot of ash in the air. It might cause folks to need to work harder to breathe… didn’t you hear us cover this at pre-ride meeting?“

Thinks to self: Of COURSE I heard it… I just didn’t anticipate it having an impact on ME! It’s OLD LA HONDA DAY!

*grumbles some reply that was likely both offensive and vaguely incoherent*

“So… uhhhh… maybe you should drop back to the Bs for today. We’ve got plenty of support, why don’t you take it easy?”

Had I been able to get a word out of my mouth, I probably would have declined. Or at least wanted to pretty badly. I’m your *ride support* for pete’s sake… not the noob who falls of the paceline!! But I was getting dropped on the easiest part of any ride ever and, after two minutes of standing still, could not breathe. My legs felt like jello at mile two. So I acceded. My group rolled off, and I continued my grind up Foothill — too stubborn to call it a day this early, breathing or not.

I was pretty quickly caught, and subsequently passed, by the Bs… and then the As. I slogged out the first ~15 miles to rest stop 1, on truly some of the easiest road in existence… in my little chain ring at about 10 mph. Apparently lungs are fairly essential tools in powering your body to ride (who knew?!), and my legs pretty much told my brain to shove it at the wussy levels of oxygen I was providing. At the first rest stop, I flagged down Charles (who was, once again, providing rock-star SAG) and pulled out the useless-to-date inhaler.

Side note: We missed a post on this. My vaguely fail doctor decided that I *obviously* had what I can only term “Random Onset with only Some Symptoms Adult Asthma” and prescribed two inhalers to help with my lung issues — one for every day and one for “attacks” — despite the fact that I never had an attack or …really… more than one  indicator off the laundry list signs of asthma. The daily one didn’t do crap other than to make my mouth taste bad twice a day, but I carried the emergency jobber around on the off chance that the doc’s predictions would prove correct (in which case having it would save my life… right?).

I figured that if I was ever having “an attack,” this must be what it felt like. I wasn’t quite wheezing, but I was light headed and couldn’t get enough air in to power my legs… or much of anything else. So I tried it. Two puffs of the emergency inhaler, a wave off of the “maybe you should just SAG this one” and I was off to climb Stevens Canyon Road. (Have you gotten the impression yet that I’m a teeeeeeensy bit stubborn?)

MAN! Does that lung stuff make a difference!! I can only assume “rescue inhaler” is another term for some combination of crack and steroids. By the time I left the parking lot of rest stop 1, I had gone from feeling just about as bad as I’d ever felt on a bike to… superwoman. Or my version thereof. I powered up that climb and even managed to catch back up to the groups that had dropped me (well, the A/B folks… my team still lapped me). I hit the end of the road and flipped around, ready for a typically awesome descent. When it’s not wet, that road is super fun to ride down!

Turns out, crack and steroid highs are short lived. About halfway down the hill, I started feeling kinda lame again. Bottom of the hill I seriously considered sagging out of the ride — before deciding that I could still bang this thing out. Back out on Foothill (this was an out and back piece of the route), I was worse than before. I was literally in my smallest ring, panting, alone, and pushing a whopping 7mph. And then, to make things just a bit worse, I spaced out and completely missed my turn… adding 6 miles to my route. Full of win!

I did eventually get back on route and made it all the way to Altamont. The very foot of Altamont, to be precise.(For those who don’t remember the reference, Altamont is a beastly little gut-popper that exists to make cyclists cry. It’s just long enough and just steep enough to suck lots.) I Gu’d up. Poured water on my head to cool down. Clipped in. Spun twice. Realized there really wasn’t another gear lying around, waiting to take me up the hill. Turned around and flung my bike in the truck. Yep… at this point, Charles had been assigned to be my personal SAG. I was THAT far behind. I had made it a full 36 miles, but I truly had nothing left in the tank. I couldn’t climb Old La Honda if I couldn’t breathe. Hell, I couldn’t ride the flats! I found the limit to my stubbornness, accepted that OLH wasn’t going to happen for me… again… and threw in towel.

To add insult to injury, I had to ride along as SAG for the rest of the team for the remainder of the day. Just because I failed didn’t mean Charles was off duty! On the one hand, I was happy to cheer folks on — especially those climbing “the beast” for the first time — but I’d be lying to say it wasn’t hard to watch, knowing I couldn’t pull it off myself. Again.

Believe it or not, I did live through it. The rest of the team rockstar-d up the climbs and, for the most part, had a nice, uneventful day. (Apparently ash doesn’t affect all equally!) As for me, the best I could do was resolve to get my lung issues nailed down sooner than ASAP – with Moab on the horizon, climb skipping just wouldn’t work!

TNT Ride #8 Old La Honda Odyssey

There’s actually not a ton to say about the ride. I rolled without Garmin, so I don’t have any data and the +/-1 ft elevation gain doesn’t give a ton of challenge to walkthrough. The most interesting part of the whole event was really riding it with someone else, especially as that someone else was Charles – who I’ve been trying to get back into cycling on and off for two years! Riding is just more fun with other people (well, with cool other people anyway), and that’s doubly true on routes that suck. There’s nothing like chatting/singing/making fun of people to keep your mind off of terrible roads!

Anyway, we rode a 10 mile loop out to Seal Point dog park, back down passed our house, over to Chipotle for lunch and then home again. The trip was enjoyable despite the still-present evil headwinds, although I think we both learned a good “only after rides” lesson for the best burrito intake process. We did make it home (with food still in its proper location), and I think Charles enjoyed the run much more than the fail Los Gatos trail miles we used to ride in San Jose. In fact he ended up doing a couple solo rides on his own over the next week! Perhaps I’ll have a new ride partner sometime soon after all (…at least for the short rides!  …for now!).

From a “how the ride went” perspective, the Tour de Montañas was pretty uneventful. Sure, it was hot — but we’ve done much hotter rides. It was long — but we’ve done longer. There was climbing but… well, you get the idea. On the whole, my team performed really well on their longest route up to that point. There were definitely things that could be improved upon (leaving a paceline out of a stoplight? not a race!), but most things that were “wrong” were really more like fine tuning of techniques than actual problems.

The real story of this week’s ride was having Charles as driving SAG for my team, complete with doggie sidekick! This was the first day in over a year that Charles has been able to sign up for SAG, and his first time as road support (rather than rest stop volunteer). I was a little worried that he’d be bored (hey… 65 miles worth of riding takes a frikkin’ long time!), but I’m pretty sure that he actually enjoyed it… once he recovered from the absolute horror of being out of bed before 7am, that is. The Dream Catchers rolled out of Foothill College a little after eight, with our trusty SAG support following by about 10 minutes. We quickly covered the first 10 miles (Foothill and over Mt. Eden? No problem!), and had a regroup before covering the next reverse downhill – Pierce. Side note: Big congrats to Chi Lam who made it down the backside of Eden on bike! Re-riding an accident scene is always tough, but he rocked it!

Pierce was a new and nasty hill for me… but, thanks to my ever-knowledgable teammates, one for which I was (at least mentally) prepared. After a little gut-punching action, we enjoyed a nice series of downhills to Rest Stop #1 at McClellan park – passing the time by hunting for my black truck SAG stalker. Charles wanted to execute his duties with “optimal response time” to any potential incident, so we saw him every mile or two as he pulled off to make sure we were ok (Sasyha helped… or… stood outside the truck looking official at random intervals… ). After a quick refuel break, we hit a good stretch of paceline practice roads back in the Alameda de Las Pulgas – Menlo Park area.

Of course, there’s only one way that we ever seem to come off of Alameda de Las Pulgas… and it’s one that made me glad for the group-ride energy conservation: Edgewood Road. We did part of this climb for Matt’s buddy route (right before turning off to hit “the wall”), and I’ve driven it about a billion times – but man did I underestimate what a pain it would be to ride! In all actuality, the hill itself isn’t too tough — just a little over 2 miles long at a reasonable grade. The problem lies in hitting that climb in 90 degree heat with 40 miles already under your belt. The road actually cuts through two larger hills on either side, which means that you get absolutely zero breeze going up. The sun pretty well baked me dry, but (thanks to an emergency Chocolate Outrage Gu!) I made the top without stopping.

I was in pretty dire need of rest come Rest Stop #2 at the summit. Thankfully, Charles was there to fill my “hug something warm and fuzzy” distraction needs, while Sashya filled my bottles and fed me fruit. Wait… hrmmm…. reverse that. I hugged the puppy, recouped (puppies really are the best medicine!) and headed for a nice downhill to the ol’ ride sheet standby – Cañada. Yes, again. Stop asking. We put our “you’re only as fast as your slowest person” gap calling paceline skills to work on this stretch – those headwinds really are a bitch, and people are tired by mile 45. We accidentally temporarily lost our super SAG  by pulling off for a potty break at the non-car-accessible water temple. Oopsie! We did manage to find him again in a couple miles (he rode all the way to the end and back looking for us), but we would have totally blown his self-imposed response time goals had anything actually gone wrong. Lucky for all involved, the worst thing anyone could complain of on that stretch of road was some tired legs.

The next miles were familiar and uneventful. We headed down Portola to Alpine and then climbed up the backside of Arastradero. With only 5 miles to go, everyone started to perk up a bit… only to get smacked in the face a bit with another climb over Purissima. The whole team made it up, but the “GAAAAAAP!” calls increased drastically — a sure sign that people were wearing down. And then… Elena. We’ve done this hill a bunch of times for repeats, but not typically this side, and never the whole way darn stretch! Grrrrrr. Our team split up pretty drastically on this climb (much to super-SAG’s chagrin — too much space to cover effectively!) as we spun out the last two miles. Yep… a two mile climb at the end of a 65 mile ride. At least Coach George didn’t try and call it “just a bump,” as I think someone (me) might have had to punch him. Or at least had to think about punching real hard while, in reality, being too tired to execute pretty much any nonessential movement.

I was dragging tail over the last stretch, but seeing Charles and Sashya every little while helped me a lot. Maybe it’s true that smiling while climbing relaxes you (seriously… Google it! That’s a documented cycling theory right there!), because I was actually able to make the summit without stopping. After a pretty nasty descent over some “road work in progress” pavement, the entire team regrouped back at Foothill College. I forced everyone to stand still long enough to snag a group picture:

before Charles and I headed out to lunch to review his premier SAG performance. Hey – if he’s going to make this a regular thing… we need talk strategy! The team is up for a 75 miler next weekend (well… the weekend after this ride… which was back on the 8th), so stay tuned for more super cycling stories soon.

Besides the need for more preparation, I actually (as we’ve noted before) really enjoy doing the climbing nights. The one time recently that I made it to hills and skills (8/4 – stats below), I had a killer time on the “hard loop.” I definitely didn’t rock as many repeats as the strongest riders, but I conquered the Concepcion->La Paloma->Evil Side of Westwind loop a full four times before degenerating into Al death threats. Surprisingly, given the number of skips I’ve had, I even still had energy for the “empty the tank” sprint on the way back. I’m sure the fast people in front of me were just worn down from their extra climbing loops, but I swear I almost caught one! More importantly, that endorphin high (oh-so useful after a stressy week at the office) lasted through the ride, through Chipotle and back to the house — where I promptly passed out by 9:45. Man, could I use some of that this week!

Point of the story? You’re not missing a bunch of posts — I’m missing rides. End of release cycle at work is always crazy, and leaving at 4:30 is tough. I’m still fighting with the docs over what could be wrong with my lungs, and can only cross my fingers, wait and hope that they’ll figure it out soon. I am definitely trying to make these last few repeats before our event day though (universe willing), so I’ll keep you posted. Ha, posted… terrible blog pun…

The two of us rolled up to the starting area at Coyote Point ridiculously early Sunday morning. I was afraid that day-of registrations might get cut off and that we might not get our T-shirts if we came late. As it turned out, everyone who came could register and everyone who registered day-of got their shirts mailed to them — but by the time we’d figured that out it too late to reclaim any lost sleep. Hey – it was only my second non-TNT event ever… what do I know?

Given the state of my legs after the buddy ride the day before, we opted to register for the 31mi route instead of the 65 or 100 options (well, instead of the 65. Realistically, the 100 was never on the table… but it sounds more impressive if you put it in the list!). The lines moved super quickly, and we traded our $40 cash for an armband and route sheet with a full hour to spare. We braved the obnoxiously short and steep climb to and from the starting zone two extra times – had to shed some layers and drop off the empty Julie-fuel cells (aka Diet Mountain Dew bottle) at the car.

Extraneous objects stowed, we joined the rest of the cattle herd in between the plastic ropes that formed the start-line chute. Actual roll time was delayed a good 10 minutes, which meant extra time standing in the cold, grey fog of San Mateo mornings. We managed not to freeze to death in 50 degree weather (barely!), and, after a near-wipeout at the actual start line, were on our way.

I probably won’t be able to describe the route super accurately, despite the help of my Garmin data. Time and the most-fail route sheet that you’ve ever seen (Seriously? A full-color giant map with almost no road names? And no distances?) has dulled my memory, and the GPS data is hard to interpret as the route looped over itself in several spots. I know for sure that the route first followed the Coyote Point Trail south before heading across downtown San Mateo. This was one of my very favorite parts of the ride, as Charles and I hang out in this neighborhood often — but I’ve never ridden it. I felt a bit like a tour guide – “there’s my movie theater, and there’s the awesome Italian place.” Fun stuff! I was sorely tempted to stop at Pete’s somewhere around mile 5; only Julie’s hatred of all things coffee kept me on bike. Silly girl… coffee is tasty!

We quickly learned to appreciate the CHP providing “traffic calming” at intersections as well as all the super enthusiastic volunteers directing us at every turn. Most roads had no cars at all and we almost never got lost (we’ll get to that in a minute), no thanks to aforementioned Route Sheet of Faildom. Our first climb went up Crystal Springs Road (which you might remember from the previous day’s ride) and was a good way to finally warm up. Julie and I split up during the climb, but regrouped easily at Rest Stop #1 at the top of the hill.  This stop seemed way too early in the route, so we just topped off water bottles and kept on rolling.

From there we headed down Skyline and out onto everyone’s favorite closed road: Cañada. The sun started to peek out just as we hit the reservoir, and we enjoyed some warmer miles along familiar territory. I’m actually beginning to think that legislation was passed at some point requiring 98% of all rides in the area to include Cañada road! We opted skip Rest Stop #2 at the water temple as well, figuring that we’d just hit it on the way back (as the 31 mile route was an out-and-back on this road). Julie and I rolled along for another 2-ish miles before hitting Edgewood and running out of “31 mile route –>” signs. Apparently what the route sheet had failed to make clear was the fact that the second rest stop was our turnaround spot. Oopsie!

We quickly whipped around and headed back to check out the goodies. One very tasty plum and one somewhat-less-tasty See’s chocolate lollypop later, we were back on the road. The next bit of the route was pretty fun. We veered off to the right of the main road, just before 92, and took a little walking trail up over 280. There was a bitchy little popper climb to get up to the overpass, and a longer but milder-grade one to get up to Ralston Ave… but I enjoyed the scenery (and the novelty of riding over a major highway). After some lack-of-crosswalk stoplight cursing, we were treated to an awesome long descent down Ralston and Polhemus.

The furiously waving flags at our next turn just barely kept me on track for the turn onto Crystal Springs Road again (deja vu all over again or somesuch — 3 times in one weekend!). I made the turn at the last possible second, but was stuck climbing in my biggest gear for awhile. By the time Julie and I were about a quarter of the way up this hill-lette, I was starting to feel the pain of yesterday’s ride. 31 miles isn’t really that much longer than our typical 23 mile recovery loop, but this route definitely had a bit more climbing than I expected. We crested the top and hit rest stop #1 again – this time pausing for a bit of refuel action.

With (significantly more tasty) butterscotch See’s lollies in hand, we set out to ride the Sawyer Camp Trail. Seriously, sooo much route overlap – at least I knew what to expect! The day was gorgeous – sunny but not hot – and the trail was much more fun to ride when it was closed to pedestrians. We wound around the reservoir, celebrating the win that is butterscotch candy and taking in the scenery. The short climb at the end of the trail felt much harder than I know it is… but Julie and I made it up pretty quickly nonetheless.

We zipped through Rest Stop #3 without stopping and enjoyed/clutched the handlebars in terror through the descents back down to civilization. (As it turns out, coming straight down from those hills up in Millbrae is much steeper than you’d imagine!) The rest of the ride really was mostly downhill and definitely uneventful. The very last mile of the route went through a bizarre gravel patch which made me feel as though I should’ve been on a mountain bike… or at least riding commuter tires… but we made it through and back up the hill to the start/finish zone without any flats (miraculously).

After checking out the (rather paltry) selection of vendors in the finish zone, we hauled our selves back downhill to the car. I did get a pedometer that I have no idea how to use and a bunch of brochures for rides that I’m probably not doing — but that was about it. We decided to pass on the lame-ish looking food at the end, opting for BJs (yay giant potatoes!) as a lunch reward instead. All in all, my second event ride ever was a very fun time — a bit challenging for a “recovery ride”… but good times nonetheless.

The trickier scenarios though, are those when coaches lie unintentionally. They say things that seem reasonable and that don’t fall into the standard “coach-speak” repertoire. Take last Saturday’s buddy ride, for example. Coach Matt gives us a rundown of the ride before we roll out from the Menlo Park Safeway lot. He talks us through the 50 mile loop, which, other than a couple small climbs sounds pretty easy. He’s never ridden the whole route, only driven it… but we’ve done a couple 57-milers at this point – 50 should be cake! Matt does mention one road with a 100 yard or so steep climb, with an off-handed “remember you have feet if you need them” remark… but with my last couple weeks at hill repeats focused solely on short, out of the saddle climbs, I don’t think much of it. What’s 100 yards?! Have I foreshadowed enough here yet?

Roughly eight of us headed out together after our pep-talk (we had a really small turnout for this ride for some reason). We made quick work of Alameda de las Pulgas before turning onto our “warm-up” hill at mile five, Edgewood. Despite some pretty cold muscles (why oh why did I forget my armwarmers?!), I buzzed up this bad boy without too much of an issue. The group turned right onto Crestview at mile 7, where I dropped into my baby ring and prepared to stand… only to see my entire crew walking up the hill. As in… not on bikes. What the hell?? That’s not a good sign. I took a deep breath and resolved to sit and spin for as long as I could before standing (which always makes my heart rate explode instantaneously). I pushed into my lowest gear and got to work.

Wow. 100 yards was definitely a lie. As far as I can tell from the map data, the first “mini summit” was about .75mi up… and running about perpendicular to sea level. About halfway up to the false top, I could no longer hear people talking next to me over the sound of my own breath. I switched my hands to the top bars and got my whole upper body working to keep moving. My speed dropped to somewhere around zero (although I did manage to keep going just enough to prevent the Garmin from shutting itself off). That grade was ridiculous! I passed 4 or 5 people walking, as I got it into my head that I could at least make the first intersection before I had to dismount… which is exactly what I did. At the first side street, I hopped off the bike and started hoofing it toward the top.

Now, walking in clips is dumb. Really dumb. You can’t balance properly on your toes (because there’s a giant frikkin’ piece of plastic there), so you end up waddling like a duck back on your heels. Only… when you’re walking uphill at absurdly steep angles… waddling doesn’t really work. You need to push from the calves, which requires full-toe contact. EESH! After about 100 feet of awkward-walk, I gave up, pulled into someone’s driveway (to have a flat spot to clip in), and went back to gut-punch climbing. I huffed and puffed, gasped and wheezed the rest of the way to the stop sign… in the saddle. Woofreakinhoo! Once everyone reaches the “top,” Matt lets us know that we should have rollers the rest of the way up, and pedaling through the downhills should get us up the next climbs with ease.

…right. I’m not sure if Matt ever actually drove this road, or just has a really bad memory… but there were no “downhill” sections. We were treated to some “significantly less steep” uphill sections, but the next .75 miles to the actual summit were 100% climbs. The Garmin will verify!! (And in case you’ve been keeping track? The whole of Crestview was ~1.5 miles… not so much 100 yards. Average grade estimate is 9%… although I guarantee it was much higher along the way. Always lies.) In good news, I was bound, determined, and able to reach the actual crest of Crestview in the saddle, without stopping. I’m pretty sure that a few people walked it faster than I climbed… but no matter. I pulled that shit out on a bike! We took a few minutes for recovery at the top, and tried to put in a call to Don to give him fair warning on how terrible this climb would be. (I hope, for the sake of his ladies, that Don got that message. Owie!)

Luckily the descent off of Crestview and eventually down Ralston was pretty long and served for good recovery time. I kicked up some good speeds coming downhill, and pounded some food and drink at the bottom (no cramps for me today, please!). We watched a deer and its very tiny baby meander across the street (thankfully safely), before turning off the main drag and onto Crystal Springs road. I should have been able to make quick work of this “not a climb”… but I’m pretty sure that I’d blown all of my reserves back on that mile seven monster. My lead-legs and I did rock the entire stretch of road in the saddle, and not even in my smallest gear — it just took awhile.

Our crew headed next out Sawyer Camp Trail, a 6 mile multi-use trail that circles the Crystal Springs Reservoir. The loop reminded me a bit of riding back on the Los Gatos Creek trail. The surrounding scenery is gorgeous, and it was definitely an excellent place to continue recovering from climbs… but they constant people dodging inherent in “multi-use” public areas can be frustrating. If I hadn’t been so tired, I’m confident that I would have been more annoyed. Still… I could absolutely imagine taking people newer to bike riding around this trail, as it is very pretty and very manageable.

At the top of the Sawyer Camp Trail climb, our group decided to go “off sheet” and head out Skyline instead of coming back down and performing Dodge The People: Act Two. I’m pretty sure that we ended up with a few extra “rollers” (coach speak!) for our trouble, but we did get back down to Hwy 92 fairly quickstyle. Now, right about here is where our group broke apart.  I missed the light on 92 by about fifteen seconds, and then didn’t weigh enough to trip it for the next two cycles. By the time a non-human-motor vehicle showed up, the entire group had a 10 minute lead on me. I may be capable of a decent short sprint… but catching them at those distances just wasn’t gonna happen! Thankfully, Dan waited for me just passed the light, so he and I headed out together to finish the last twenty miles.

From this point on, the ride progressed into super familiar territory. We rolled down Canada Road (site of our pacelining clinic), and picked up Chi Lam’s buddy, Shawn, along the way. Apparently his energy was starting to flag and he’d dropped off the tail of the main group somewhere along the flats. The three of us meandered down parts of the Woodside-Portola Valley loop (Olive Hill wiggling to Woodside, to Portola to Apline style), consistently dropping pace along the way. You see, Shawn hadn’t ridden in awhile. A good long while apparently. (Don’t start your friends back to cycling on a 50 mile climb-heavy ride, people!) Somewhere in the vicinity of Portola Road, he came perilously close to a bonk without saying anything (sigh… boys). Dan and I noticed him falling off our backs, even with the pace around 10mph on flats and started to get worried. I declared the need for another rest stop, where we all but force fed him a Power bar and a Gu. With the number of times I’ve “hit the wall” or had someone in my ride group do so… I recognized the signs easily (and buddy rides don’t come with SAG!). For the record: if Chocolate Outrage Gu ever tastes like “the best thing you’ve ever tasted”… you are in dire need of carbs. 

Sugar consumed, we were ready to roll back out for the last 10 miles of the ride. I kept the pace low (near-bonk is not the time to be setting speed records), determined to make sure that we all finished together. We had a few minutes of worry on Willowbrook Drive, as there’s a tiny little gut-popper bump at the end — but managed to hit the “really downhill from here” stretch of Alpine after only one more small break.  The three of us rolled back into the Safeway parking lot intact, and acceded to a near-ravenous Shawn’s demands for a cheeseburger in short order. All told, it was a very pretty 50 milers – just a bit more challenging that coach-speak had led us to expect!

The morning started off promisingly overcast. Oh yes, when living in fear of heat stroke, “promising” and “overcast” can be used together in a positive manner… even at the perceived expense of pretty pictures. The newly-dubbed Dream Catchers rolled out from the parking lot (complete with our new group-mate Dan) and, after a few adjustments to paceline technique, quickly passed through the neighborhoods of Milpitas. We joked, laughed, sang (you haven’t lived until you’ve heard my on-bike rendition of “Some Kind of Wonderful”) and, despite a few nasty construction zones, had a good warmup.

There is definitely some advantage in experience. By the time we hit the “secret restroom stop,” I knew, not only that our first climb was coming up, but also roughly how long and how terrible it would be. I downed a few gummy sharks (Yep. Sharks. Remind me that I owe a new food review post soon!), and started to get mentally fired up for the Palomares climb. A couple miles and a few encouraging words from Coach George later, we were spinning our way skyward.

Now, I should probably mention at this point, that I’d gone out and bought new shoes and clips the night before. My old ones were starting to show their age (and by that I mean, they were well passed the point that anyone thought they should still be worn) and, in a desperate bid for their retirement, had decided to start squeaking with every pedal revolution. Knowing that I didn’t need one more source of annoyance on long climb rides, I made a last-minute dash to Palo Alto Bikes Friday night to procure their replacements. (For the record: the guy at the store actually told me “I’d definitely gotten my money’s worth out of ‘em” on seeing the old pair. Doh! I didn’t think they were that bad!)

Why is this worth mentioning? To reiterate Important Cycling Pro Tip #24:  try your gear out at least once before a long ride. I quickly discovered that, for whatever reason, my left clip was too far forward. By a lot.  Every time I pushed with my left leg, I unconsciously tried to scoot my foot up so that I could push with the ball of my foot. Of course, that didn’t actually succeed in doing anything other than making my left toes go numb and my left calf ache. My left calf is having a bad season! Egos are a funny thing though (as is a lack of readily available hex-tool), and I decided to spin up to the first rest stop rather than trying to stop and adjust. Hey! No one wants to hold up the team, right?! I made it to the top, solid in the middle of the pack, and proactively pushed the potassium and salts (No sense tempting the Calf-god Fates). There wasn’t really a good spot to try and adjust my shoe, so I headed into the descent planning to make an adjustment at our next stop point.

Palomares has a kickass downhill. There are a small number of switchbacks early, followed by some lovely, sweeping sections. I pushed my speed up a good bit (ever conscious of the deer that tried to kill me last time), and topped out just a smidge under 40mph. Wahoo! The rest of the team made it downhill without incident, and we proceeded into my (second? third? depends on if you count the hills) least favorite part of the ride: the 580 parallel false flats. I just don’t have anything good to say about a hot exposed road, running adjacent to a major freeway, that tries to trick your brain into thinking that it should be easy. So rude! We were rewarded with another nice descent into Pleasanton… but really the nicest thing I can say about this stretch of the ride is thank goodness the weather stayed cool through there this year!

By the time our group stopped at the Marriot for a quick restroom break, my left calf and toes were really starting to complain. I took a chance on inconveniencing the group, borrowed a multi-tool and pushed that darn cleat back. And whoa was it out of place! The entire base was shifted a full notch forward compared to the right side and the whole thing was sitting at about 45-degree angle! I’m not sure if the cleat was just not secured well initially (and then slipped when I first clipped out) or what… but it was definitely utterly wrong. I saddled back up just about the time the boys were ready to roll, cleat in much better shape (but calf definitely still feeling the abuse). 

The stretch of ride down through Pleasanton and into our next rest stop was fairly uneventful. I mentally celebrated my shoe-repair success and remained cautiously optimistic at the lack of rising temperatures in the area. I managed to climb the amazingly steep driveway into rest stop two (again, advance knowledge is your friend!) and was rewarded with a fantastic spread of goodies (including my personal favorite: fresh watermelon!).  After a quick break, George ushered us back onto bikes and out on the road. After a few short turns, we found ourselves winding through Sunol.

Now, Sunol is one of those love-hate sections of the ride. On the one hand, there is some absolutely gorgeous scenery to behold, and there are typically very few cars. Yay! On the other, the entire area consists of what should feel like manageable rollers… except for the persistent, high speed headwinds. We definitely put our pacelining skills to work through this stretch, trying to focus on keeping the pulls short as the heat plus wind combo was making people really notice their thirst (only drink at the back people!!). We did have one dropped bottle almost-incident (almost in that no one actually hit it), but otherwise hit the bottom of the second big climb, Calaveras, drama free.

I’m not gonna lie. I was dreading Calaveras. Think about it. My experience on this hill pretty much consists of struggling up the thing in 90+ degree heat, making the rest stop only to fall trying to leave, getting back up, nearly passing out, temporarily recovering, breaking my derailleur (through no fault of my own!) and then having to SAG out. Not exactly a friendly track record. I was absolutely determined to make it through this climb and set the record straight — bum calf be damned! So I GU’d up, dropped gears and sat back to spin.

It’s odd how you can build things up in your mind. You worry about flying gravel and stress about the heat, imagine a dozen ways to fall and vilify innocent landscape, only to discover… this hill isn’t so bad. In fact, when your eyes aren’t burning with the dripping chemicals of dissolving sunscreen… it’s actually kind of… pretty. Who knew? I chatted with Colin, kept my breathing fairly normal, and made the top without stopping. Well.. the almost top. The rest stop anyway, which you falsely believe is the top the first time you do this ride (haha! Didn’t fool me this time!). After a quick-ish SAG supported recovery, which may or may not have included me making out with a very cute puppy, we hit the road to burn out the last 10 miles.

Or so we thought. Apparently the area around Calaveras is absolutely covered in not-so-tiny, dried burrs which, upon encountering bike tires, throw a happy pokey party. Mike and I each dislodged four or so of these stabby bastards before we headed into the rest of our climb. Unfortunately for him, these burrs are nothing if not persistent in their desire to pierce all rubber through and through. Mike suffered no less than four flats on the 3-ish mile stretch that remained of the Calaveras climb. Seriously. To be fair to the puncture happy fauna, one of those was a pinch-flat. Thankfully our SAG car was never far behind (as we weren’t actually moving far), and each tube change was pretty quick… although definitely not fun for poor Mike!

Miraculously, my own tires never went flat ,despite initial hissing air noises to indicate that they would. One was, however, flat as a pancake come Monday morning. We finally finished the climb (ha! take that heat!), and hit the last descent of the day… down the backside of “the Wall.” I’ve gotta wonder… do all neighborhoods have something they call The Wall? I can think of at least three! Once everyone survived the “descending on your head” feeling of actually going down such a steep hill, the group was free to enjoy a swooping descent back to civilization. Well… most of us were. I’m pretty sure Mike’s enjoyment has faded in memory, as he found a fifth flat in his tire at the bottom of the road. Doh! 

Our newly-crowned Tube Swapping Expert made quick work of his last flat (for real this time), and we all easily finished the last tiny stretch of road. With yet another old demon conquered, 57 miles down and over 3000 calories burned, I headed to El Torito for some mexican refuel action… before heading home and hoping for a nap.

With a glare at the ever-pressuring universe, I rolled out onto Concepcion for the first round. Truth be told, my performance was something of a mixed bag. My speed up the first climb was pretty average and I built up some decent momentum on the descent, but I didn’t downshift nearly enough heading into Westwind. Whatever grade that bastage of a hill possesses, it cannot be accomplished by me in my lowest mid-ring gear… even while standing. As my speed slowed to nearly negative, I began frantically dropping gears – until I dropped them right off the cassette and embedded the chain in my frame. Sweet. I managed to unclip before faceplanting, but was forced to abandon the rest of the climb and just head into the descent. I did manage the entirety of the Viscaino climb (despite additional downshift fail), but my persistant breathing issue led to some incredibly exciting panting along the way.

I couldn’t really call hard mode quits with only a high level of utter fail behind me, so I decided to press on. Round two was pretty much a direct repeat of round one, with bonus skateboarders to ruin my descent into evil Westwind. I managed to get into my little ring, but the loss of momentum into the climb wasn’t enough to hit the summit. Grrrrrr. After some labored panting recovery time (and possibly a packet of luna moons), I rolled out again for round three. This loop went a bit better. I sacrificed some power into the descent and dropped into the granny gears before I ever hit Westwind. I had to stand up earlier, but was able to keep turning the cranks all the way to the summit. Finally. 

I celebrated by… finishing the third loop climb up Viscaino (successfully, thank you very much), and heading back out for a fourth. No sense wussing out now, right? I continued my good climb karma and hit the summit of all three hills without incident (assuming you don’t count huffing and puffing constantly). As I gasped my way back to a normal heart rate, we waited for everyone to regroup in the parking lot for a demonstration on cornering. Jamii and Al gave an excellent talk on how to turn — without falling (always important).

Who even knew you could demo from a standstill?

Everyone took a few turns (pun intended) at low speeds before heading back to the park. With four rounds of difficult climb time under my belt, I was definitely ready for some Chipotle-reward dinner!

The recovery loop after Coach George’s ride pretty much fits into that category. I still couldn’t really breathe, but that hardly falls under the “cool stories to report” header. The weather wasn’t particularly hot, and our group was relatively small. Approximately nothing of interest happened all the way up through Arastradero preserve and up the little climb before Alpine (unless you count a super-fail dropped chain in the middle of a major road while trying to make a left-hand turn).

And then we hit Alpine. Per usual, the strongest of our group (Coach Ron today) lead out the train down one of the fastest pieces of pavement I’ve ever ridden (at least in that direction). Coach Don tucked in behind him and I decided (despite my oxygen deficient condition) to grab his wheel. The rest fell in after me, and with a short ramp up period, we were off! Now I can remember a time when I was afraid to hop on Ron’s train. He’s fast as hell and I never wanted to be the person to kill the pace — plus my pacelining skills were shaky at best. Lately I’ve been able to hop on Don’s wheel early and keep up pretty well, so this week I decided to go for it.

Man did we fly! I made myself as small as possible, hit the drops and put the hammer down. There were a couple points that I had to really punch it up to keep in the slipstream… but I hung on that train all the way to the end! I’m sure there are a couple of you that will look at the stats and just sniff (darn gearheads!), but I was darn proud of hitting a 30+ mph pace on that road. I’ve definitely never gotten near 35mph without putting in a heckofalotta climbing beforehand (and definitely not while riding 6-8″ off someone’s rear wheel). Woohoo!

The rest of the loop pretty much sticks to standard playbook. I chatted in between gasping for breath and just generally enjoyed the company. Everyone made it back to the parking lot without incident and circled up at our normal spot for breakfast. In good news, with that extra little bit of quick ride work done, I definitely felt like I’d earned those pancakes!

Side bar: I’m not entirely sure how so many bike riders fail to realize the space limitations of handlebars. There’s totally no room in a tiny map clip for three-quarters of a normal page width! I typically end up folding the vast majority of my sheets at weird locations (cutting off the helpful “tip” text) to make everything fit without encumbering my bar access — so I really appreciate when people get the format right. For the record, I’m also totally OCD about random crap like formatting issues… so I acknowledge/accept that the rest of the universe probably had to tune out during that little praise/rant section!

Aaaaaaand we’re back. After picking up my lovely route sheet and signing in, I had a few minutes to socialize with the crew while waiting for our pre-ride pep talk/info meeting. I was excited to see that Hilton (from my first season) made it, along with one of our honorees (and former ride support / coaches), Ed. I managed to corral them for a quick reunion photo before we rolled out.

Team Tikitiki reunites (partially)

The other big reason to love this ride was really familiarity. While the total loop was over 50 miles long, it mostly included locations that we’ve ridden before – which is definitely a bonus when you’re riding without SAG support! Hilton, Julie and I set out from our Starbucks basecamp and, after a few less familiar roads, found ourselves climbing up behind Foothill college — our new hill repeats stomping ground. We tackled a couple mini-climbs and then hit our first descent just in time to see Jonathan, on the side of the road, packing up his bike to be sagged out. Apparently, he’d hit a sharp banked right turn going a bit too fast (I think) and ended up going right off the road. Thankfully he was fine other than some more road rash action, but he’s definitely having a rough season for crashes! In some ways though, there was good in his misfortune. By an odd quirk of timing, my group was coming up on that curve just as they were recovering… so we all got a natural slowdown (and therefore safe descent) as we called to offer help. Eep!

We quickly progressed from the hill repeats area over to another favored haunt: the Arastradero preserve from our recovery ride. Hilton, Julie and I took our first rest stop there, and had a grand old time discussing the Tour coverage while we food/water-ed up (sometimes it’s nice to have that “go at your own pace” leisure!). Somewhere along the way we picked up Mike as well, and the four of us made easy work of that “not a climb” climb. With a quick left turn, we found ourselves rolling through another Bay Area favorite: the Portola Loop.

Now, it’s right about at this point in the ride (just after the devil false flat of Alpine) that I start to struggle a bit. For one, the day was really starting to heat up. By the time we actually hit Portola, I was glad for shade and starting to reapply sunscreen. But that wasn’t the real issue. You see… I hadn’t really thought that it might be important to mention… but I kinda couldn’t breathe (and still can’t for that matter). Not in an asthmatic sort of way, and definitely not in an allergies kinda mode. Truth be told, I wasn’t (and still am not) sure what was going on. I woke up one morning with a weird but minor condition that can really only be described as an intermittent chest tightness that only shows up when I take big, deep breaths. It doesn’t hurt all the time, and it doesn’t seem to be induced by stress, exercise, or known allergens (as I actually don’t have any). The issue had been going on for a little over a week at this point, and cycling had never really set it off. Before today.

Some combo of the heat and the lack of normal breathing rhythm caught up to me around mile 15 or so. My body wanted to take a few big deep breaths… but my chest would tighten up every time I tried. I didn’t hyperventilate or anything, I just took about a bazillion extra shallow breaths and felt more tired than I expected to at that point in the ride. So goes life. I was pretty confident that continuing the ride wouldn’t kill me (or even likely cause me any permanent damage), so I sucked it up (sadly, not literally) and rolled on. I felt slow and …gaspy… but I could definitely still pedal!

The ride continued for a good 20 miles without incident. We finished off the lovely shady end of the Portola loop pretty easily and I had what I felt to be a monster climb up Sand Hill (~10mph in the middle ring! Woohoo!). From there the route sheet took us through another portion of our normal recovery loop, passed the Stanford preserve and down Foothill expressway. Our fantastic foursome (to steal a moderately lame phrase) pretty well flew through this area – despite being nearly killed by another enormous peloton of biker bees – and had a nice recovery at Shoup Park before tackling the next big section (awesome thing number 3 about this ride? Lots of places for water and potty breaks!).

Isn’t the Stanford preserve area pretty?

By mile 30, the heat plus lack of oxygen combo was really getting to me. I was rocking some lead-legs, and definitely feeling the effort to turn the cranks over – even on a relatively mild stretch of kickoff ride road. (Seriously, if it’s part of the loop we hit on the very first ride of the season… it can’t be that challenging — we’d scare everyone away!) I kept huffing and puffing (well… taking quick, shallow breaths) and tried to keep my frustration level low (surprisingly, anger doesn’t really increase one’s ability to breathe easily) down the whole stretch of Foothill. From there we headed out to our old hill repeats torture section: Stevens Canyon Road! Oh yes folks, you read that right. Our last 15-ish miles was basically an out-and-back loop up passed our reservoir ”warm up” stretch, to our old Eden laps turnaround park, and down the hill repeats graduation road. Fun times!

I had to make with some hawt birdbath action at the turnaround park, literally splashing the fountain water over my head and down my jersey to bring my core temp down to something reasonable. We were over 3.5 moving hours in at this point (probably somewhere around 1-1:30), and the day had gone from warm to hot. Pro tip #38: Pour water under your wick-away base layer if you want any hope of that cool goodness actually touching your skin. Those netted bastages definitely do their “keep water off skin” job, whether you want them to or not! With a little time to cool down, catch our breaths (especially important for me!), and carb-up, we all decided to make the final push and do the “graduation road.”

The climb out was more of a struggle than it should have been, but (as I told Julie and wasn’t lying) the rest of the ride really was all downhill. I mean… there were a couple rollers, but nothing that a bit of pedaling action and natural downhill momentum couldn’t solve. We all made it back to the start point intact and together — only to find that everyone else had already finished, SAG’d or bailed early. Oh well. We managed to rally a small group for some Chipotle reward action, before I headed home for some recorded Tour coverage. Nothing like spending all day biking, then coming home and spending hours watching other people do the same, no? Overall, the ride was a great route – although I did discover a lack of oxygen intake makes even familiar, easy roads challenging. I promise… I’ll get to the doctor at some point. Probably.

I quickly suited up and rolled out. As you probably remember, there’s not much rideable area in my neighborhood, so I set out for the only viable destination near my house: the trail. Intending to keep the cadence high and the gears light, I downshifted a good bit — only to have to drop another 3 gears as the ever-present headwind smacked me in the face. I dodged pedestrians, dogs, strollers, kids (and a few slow arse people on bikes), all while battling what could only possibly be gale force winds. I managed to keep my speed up to an amazing 12ish miles an hour (on a route that has been proven to be +/- 1ft of elevation) before giving into the rational/lazy/superannoyed part of my brain somewhere around mile 4. I whipped around, took the tailwind and (carefully) sprinted for home.

Moral of the story? The Foster City trail, while convenient, is just not that fun to ride. Headwinds blow (literally), and slow people dodging will never really be fun. I did get a decent leg spin out, if only from the tailwind pushing me home… but the stress level certainly seemed too high to be true recovery.

I’m sorry. Really. I have no idea what on earth I might have done to offend you (especially considering that I’ve never really come to see you save on rides… actually maybe that’s it? Lack of attention?), but I swear I didn’t mean it. I’ll be good from now on, I promise. I’ll visit as often as you want. Or at least at some interval that’s reasonable. I’ll invite friends to see you. Throw a party for you. Take pretty pictures with the doggies on your beach. Or not. Just, for the love of Pete… tell me what I need to do to get you to stop randomly injuring parts of my body!

Best,

That chick who’s calf you spazzed out on that 7/11 ride

So, in case you didn’t catch the drift… my version of the team’s 50(ish) mile Half Moon Bay ride (two Saturdays ago) was a bit less than ideal. The day started off well enough. The weather was a bit cold and drizzly, but our quick “still feeling fresh first thing in the morning” pace was enough to get the engines revved up. By the time we hit the first mini-climb, I was glad that I’d left the leg warmers behind (the arm coolers were totally still a good call). After minor mechanical difficulty (Brent had some flat-tire issues), we regrouped and rolled down for a nice descent into the valley.

And thus the first 18ish miles passed almost without incident. We joked, laughed, took our turns pulling, and just generally enjoyed the scenery. The coastal views and mountain/valley action are really quite gorgeous. You still listening HMB?! I complimented you there!! Somewhere along that stretch we did end up leaving Brent and Geoff behind (HMB is a tough ride to start back on after a couple weeks out of training), but the rest of the team maintained a great line all the way up to the first actual climb (not a bump!).

Somewhere around two miles before we turned onto Haskins Hill, my right calf started feeling a bit… twingey. Yes, I realize that’s not really a word… but it’s the most accurate that I’ve got. Every few pedal strokes something seemed to pull back up feeling a little… well… wrong. Now, this wasn’t my first rodeo(ride?) or my first pulled muscle precursor. I knew something felt off and immediately took to pounding sport drink and chomping down some shot blocks every time I dropped to the back of the paceline. By the time we actually hit the base of our climb, I was pretty sure that I’d staved off any issues and wasn’t really worried about a thing (other than actually reaching the top). Shows how much I know.

I actually had a nice sit and spin ride up 99% of Haskins. Its a fairly long climb with a ton of little switchbacks and a few false summits… but it is also well shaded and is of a mostly gradual grade.  Having done this hill a couple times before, I actually had a pretty good idea as to when it would end (yay for recognizable landmarks), and started to pick up the cadence …or at least tried to… for the last couple curves.

And then, out of nowhere, my left calf gave one… two spasms… and (just as I crested the summit) it locked solid. And I mean solid. Screamingly so. The kind of cramp where you have to shout because it hurts so much. (And yes, for some unknown reason… for all the warning signs that I got from the right leg, it was the left that cramped. Who knows?!) I managed a miraculous one-legged unclip dismount, handed my bike off to our friendly neighborhood SAG (who was fortuitously/unfortunately positioned to see the whole thing), and hopped across the street to whimper and stretch. At least I made the top first, right?

By the time the rest of our ride group had reached the top and recovered, I decided to go ahead and keep rolling (or at least to attempt to do so). I didn’t want to leave the team entirely without ride support, and the rest stop was only another 10 miles in — how bad could it be? Pretty bad. The descent off Haskins went well enough; at least I remembered to keep feather-pedaling to keep from re-cramping too quickly cooled muscles. I really had to baby the left leg into the rest stop (I couldn’t pull up with it at all), but did manage to make it into the parking lot without further incident.

Knowing the likely culprits for muscle cramping (Potassium or salt deficiencies), I headed straight for the SAG table and snagged a whole banana and two roasted red potatoes, rolled in season salt – well the potatoes were, I mean. I refilled all my bottles, gulped down some more Cytomax, then went back to stretching (thanks to George for his help in targeting that darn calf muscle). By the time we rolled out, I was feeling… still tight but a bit better overall.

And then, just for extra bonus fun, we hit Stage Road. I’m sure you all remember how much I love that “little” stretch of pavement (2 broken bones ringing any bells here?). Well, for the record, I love it even *more* when I get to climb it with one gimped leg. No… really! Ok, ok. You caught me. Not really. The only positive note I can give for this series of climbs is that I did, in fact, manage to do them, fail left calf muscle notwithstanding. I also didn’t burst into tears (or even really consider doing so) when passing my accident spot this season. In fact, my Stage 1 descent was actually pretty darn smooth! You hear that HMB?? You haven’t crushed my soul yet!

By the end of the Stage 2 hill, I was pretty much toast. Everything felt off-kilter, as I was only push-pulling on one side… which tired me out darn quickly. The last stage climb back up to Hwy 1 was, well, rude. It’s actually not particularly steep or difficult, but (as I learned in my Tour de France coverage watching) placement in the ride matters. We hit the “final final” summit with only really 10 miles left to ride, and I think most of the group was feeling pretty beat up by that point. We did get some nice downhill action and some truly lovely views coming back down the highway (sadly, 30mph descents on a major thoroughfare… not the right place to bust out a camera), and finished, mostly intact in just under 4 hours. **Appeases the HMB with many compliments in a single blog post**

I dragged myself home after a quick burrito refill, and got to work on leg repair. I hot showered, iced, and IcyHot-ted before, ultimately, trusting its care to a professional. I was lucky enough to get a massage appointment in the same day, which helped a ton in relaxing all the terribly torn tissue. I did, once again, skip the Sunday recovery ride (I could barely walk… especially after an ill-advised bowling session late Saturday night) as well as Tuesday night hill repeats to allow for a bit more babying time.

I am definitely glad that I finished the ride, even though it meant doing 30 miles on a bum calf. I’m not sure why my Half Moon Bay karma is quite so terrible (did I ride over its invisible dog?!), but, thankfully, I won’t have to test my apology effectiveness letter for probably another year.

Whew. Glad we got that out of the way.

What? Not enough detail? See… I knew was terrible at short blog posts!! OK, the expanded version. Fourth of July. (Oh yeah, this suckage happened on a freaking holiday, people.) The 36 mile loop left from the Almaden Park & Ride in San Jose, one full hour later than normal time. Of course the ride point was also a good half hour farther from my house than our usual routes, so this didn’t buy me much in the way of sleep. So goes life! I get ready to roll and grab my route sheet only to realize that I left my wallet at home (no cash, no license — EEP!). After minor freakouts about what could have happened had I been pulled over (and a good long lament over the coffee that I won’t be able to buy), I declared myself ready to roll.

The first few miles are pretty uneventful. I’m riding with a good crew of folks – many from my super-C ride group – and we’re cruising at a really nice pace. There is some minor confusion around the fourth turn, as half of the ride sheets seem to have the next two directions swapped! The mileage and street names were correct – everything was just out of order. I’m not sure if Leigh Ann was intending to make the ride extra challenging… but nonsensical directions pre-caffeine is just mean! We managed to sort everything out in the end (even with half of us scouting streets that couldn’t possibly have existed where they were named), and quickly moved from a fast section of what I call “nice pavement” into our first climb.

Now I’ve climbed both of the hills from this buddy ride once or twice before, and, from my perspective, Shannon comes out as our first “real hill” of this season. Sure, the team did Mount Eden the previous week… but for those of us who’ve done hill repeats (and really, even for those who haven’t) it’s more of a mostly-friendly, overly long bump. Eden is pretty short, easy to memorize, and with a relatively low grade. If you know what you’re in for, there’s almost no reason to freak out on that hill. This ride’s stint on Shannon, on the other hand, is none of those things. OK, well the grade isn’t particularly steep, and there’s still no reason to freak out… but the climb is long enough and unfamiliar enough that you have to move away from the “I know exactly what’s coming, I can do this” thought model to the “focus on something else and just keep spinning” one. Honestly, the latter thought process is what will get your successfully through the season – but the first “OMG When DOES it end?!” climb is always the toughest.

I’m happy to say that my crew of buddies all made it to the top without incident. Chi Lam blew by me like I was standing still (told you he’d be fast once we clipped him in!), whiel I was resolved to just sit down and spin it out to the top. The day was already getting to be hot, and I was definitely glad that I left the layers back in the truck. I hit the summit winded and sweaty at the front end of the pack, grateful for the time to recover. Pounded some chews and sport drink (no cramping for me please!), and exercised my right to photo ops before we all rolled on to the descent. Shannon’s a bit switcback-y, so I took my time getting to the bottom.

All smiles at the top of Shannon!

The next few miles of the ride all blur together for me now (waiting a whole week plus to write this post probably didn’t help on that front). Our little group stayed together fairly well through downtown Los Gatos, where preparations for the 4th were kicking into high gear (no pun!). After a ridiculous amount of people dodging and one overly long, single bathroom rest stop, we emerged back on Hwy 9. I remembered this stretch of road from the week before, and figured we’d cruise at a quick and easy clip. And for awhile, I was correct. Our post pit-stop group of 4 (a few decided to hang back with Don for break in the pace) hit the highway with relative ease. I felt pretty good, and ended up having a little bit of breakaway action – figuring that I’d meet up with everyone at the corner of our next turn. A couple of the rollers felt a bit tough, but I wrote it off to a fairly nasty headwind and just kept on attacking.

The Great Equalizer (aka a red light) decided my lead was too large, and my group ended up catching me just before a busy intersection. As I clipped in and tried to push the slight downhill (another roller ahead), I heard everyone’s favorite noise… thuthuthuthuthum. Oh yeah, flat back tire. Could be worse I figured; last time I rode this area, I had a high speed front tire blow out. At least this one came at a fairly safe spot! I got over to a shady area of sidewalk and commenced the significantly less than fun back end change. I quickly pulled off the wheel and ran the speed lever around the outside. With ye ol’ flat tube stripped out, I felt my hand around the inside and outside of the tire. Nothing. *shrug* Must’ve just hit something and not noticed. I put in a new tube and began pumping away with my “oh so friendly” frame pump.

About 4 days later, the pressure seemed “greater than 40,” so I went to pull the pump off… and took the stem with it! Who even knew that was possible?! Awesome. Borrowed a tube (and a less fail pump), and started all over. Another 3 days and one “how does this wheel fit back in there” discussion later, and we were ready to roll. For about a mile. Oh yeah, you guessed it. Thuthuthuthuthum. Whatever caused the first flat? Still working its tire-breaking magic. The four of us pull over again, and commence a highly focused Foreign Object Detection Investigation. Eventually the suspect (a piece of glass so far in the tire that the rubber had rolled over it) was apprehended, and a tire-patching operation followed. Having used literally every tool in my bike bag, the team declared my third tire change a success – and we were once again ready to ride.

The she-bike gives up

But does the fun (fail) stop there? Oh no my friend… there’s more. Determined to not be the very last people to finish this ride, Mike and I try and pull up the pace a bit. So much so, in fact, that we paced right by our next turn… and added two plus miles to our loop. Julie and Chi Lam directed us back by phone (we weren’t that far off!), but tempers (mine leading the pack) were high. We managed to loop all the way back to our final climb without incident, only to discover that while we had “rested” several times during the ride – no one had thought to really eat while doing so. The four of us started the second major climb of the day, Kennedy, on what seemed to be pretty empty tanks. The lot of us took turns starting, stopping, sharing food and just generally bitching the whole way up the climb. I had to make two stops to reenergize on my way up; bad tire incidents do not lead to good decision making! Luckily, no one actually hit the wall, and we did all successfully reach the summit.

The last five miles were pretty much not worth mentioning. Most of it was downhill (yay), but we were all too tired and too hot to make much conversation (there’s a reason rides start early in the morning — especially in south San Jose). We finished the ride together, and I groveled as convincingly as I knew how – both for taking up so much time and for borrowing so much stuff! Shockingly, I don’t carry 4 spare tubes. I’m hoping that they all went home and passed out… and forgot how much they all wanted to kill me in time for the next ride. (Actually, my ride buds were all great and very helpful… it just sucks to have to fail enough to need that much help!)

I missed the recovery ride on Sunday due to utter lack of tires – I mean… how much would you trust my patching skill?  …Exactly. I did manage to get them replaced late Sunday afternoon, but didn’t manage to get another ride in until the following (this past) weekend. Late work meetings plus hill repeats is a whole other kind of fail!

Terrible buddy ride of utter faildom data below. Enjoy the 45 minute gaps in movement!

We rode in the same general area as last week’s hill repeats, but the trainers chose a new street for our climb. The new location, La Paloma, is actually a fairly mild hill… for the first 90%. The last 10% or so pops up pretty significantly in grade, which means you have to get your hiney out of the saddle to make the top. As much as I’d rather sit and spin, I decided to try and do the entire night in my middle front ring, which meant that standing was definitely required. At the end of the day, working hard now will make the event easier, right? So I chugged uphill, huffing and puffing (even passing a couple folks), and hit the summit wheezing (and cursing). I pretty quickly decided that the climb “wasn’t that bad,” descended and swung around to do it all over again.

Lap two actually seemed a bit easier. I managed to hold off from standing until a bit farther up the hill – keeping my energy up and heart rate down longer. This meant that I was “jogging uphill” a shorter distance, so I felt more relaxed (even though my heart rate data indicates I was working pretty much equally hard). Not surprisingly, laps three and then four (darn latecomers got off easier with one less lap) were tougher. I managed to keep the trick of not popping up until absolutely necessary, but my legs got tired toward the end. I did do all four rounds out of the saddle, although I dropped to the baby gears (not the lowest ones!!) for one.

Once the “don’t be a lazy tail, literally” abuse was done, we all headed down to Foothill College for bike rocking and emergency stop training. Bike rocking was an interesting exercise. In order to get us used to the idea of moving our bikes, the trainers had us exaggerate the movement at low speeds in laps. We had to get the outside of one leg to touch the inside of the opposing side of the saddle. Sound confusing? Yep, I thought so too. Pretty much, get your outer right thigh to touch the left side nose of your seat, then alternate. You have to forcibly push the bike down and shift your weight a lot to counter balance. As I a) hate standing and b) have approximately negative arm strength, I took while to get the hang of this one. I did eventually get it… but I’m not sure I’ll be good at it any time soon.

The emergency stop concept was much easier (and useful!) to grasp. Hit both brakes hard and shift your butt behind the saddle to keep the back wheel on the ground.  We watched a demo, then did several round of practice. The assistant troublemakers (helper trainers) stood at one end of the parking lot. We took turns racing directly at them and then slamming on the brakes at randomly given signals. I managed to get a good couple of skid marks on the pavement, but need to work on shifting my weight even farther. Of course I have to wonder how likely it is that I’ll actually remember that should I ever actually need it. Hopefully we never find out!

Dark fell pretty quickly after braking training, so we headed back to our launch point… with one more climb thrown in (just for extra fun). Our small horde descended onto Chipotle shortly after. At least we were rewarded for our work!

Garmin data (with somewhat useless lap info) follows below. You’ll have to hold off until tomorrow for the buddy ride fiasco, as it’s already after 10pm and I’ve got a 48 miler early tomorrow morning (blame work! I swear!). More soon.

After a quick, but handy pre-flight bike check seminar by Jim of BAMBR (gotta love the Wiggle Test), my surprisingly small ride group circled up to roll out. Apparently a few teammates had other plans for this weekend, so the Mighty Cs (nope… haven’t been renamed yet) were down to 5 riders – plus our Coach, of course. With last minute sunscreen applied, and the “remember to drink at the back of the line, every time, for real” talk delivered, we hit the road. Our ride got off to a bit of a shaky start. Chi Lam was learning his newly installed pedal system, which made the 5 billion stop signs in downtown Los Gatos more than a little challenging. (I promise, it gets easier with practice!!)

Just as we hit the main drag and really started pacelining, we had another small accident. As if learning pedals wasn’t tough enough, Chi Lam was being tutored in the harder-than-it-sounds art of pulling water bottles without stopping. One misplaced hand and he was down for the count. Eesh, poor guy! We’re definitely asking him to learn a lot in a single day! For the record, I still mostly suck at pulling bottles and often have a mini-mental-panic-attack when doing it… a full 2 years after I started riding. I totally sympathize. Luckily there was no major damage (although I can’t speak to bruised spirit status), and we were all cautiously back on the road in a matter of minutes.

From there, the rest of the first half of the ride passed without incident. I quickly discovered that riding in the summer apparently means riding in the heat! I’m confident that this little documented fact was known to me at some previous point in time, but months of sporadic spring, fall and winter riding seems to have granted me temporary amnesia. Well, the veil has been lifted from my eyes… and something is going to have to be done about my terribly non-breathable (but oh-so-fashionable) TNT jerseys! I was pretty much sweltering by 9:30, with quite a few miles ahead of us. Doh! Thankfully, there was only  a brief potty-stop and two small, but familiar climbs between me and break time. Knowing the terrain is a definite advantage, and I was around the reservoir and up to the shade in no time.

The first “real” ride of the season also means… the first rest stop! Charlotte’s crack team of SAG masters was out en force to provide refuel and refreshment goodies. I don’t usually eat much at the stops, but the lemon-lime sports beans were just too exciting to pass up. Oh… and the fresh giant strawberries. Mmmmm berries (so much tastier than their chemical-y sport goo counterparts). With some food snarfed down, water bottles refilled, and a good amount of huffing and puffing completed, Team C headed out to tackle Eden.

Now, Mount Eden isn’t the worst hill in the world (heck, it’s probably one of my favorites just from pure familiarity), but it definitely qualifies as a “meet at the top,” regroup, and then “meet at the bottom” type climb. Which is pretty much exactly what we did. I’m happy to report that I rode the entire length in my middle chain ring - although I was less happy about that later when I was dragging tail on the last 5 miles. I reached the top with pretty much no problem, and was glad for a slight rest at the top. My descent was solid (but not super fast), and I reached the meet-up point right in the middle of the pack.

And we waited. Mike, Silvana, John and I sat in our designated driveway and chatting and recovering. At some point my muscles start getting a bit cold and I think to myself… “hrmmm, it’s been a little while, hasn’t it? I wonder if something is wrong.” I check my cell phone but have no reception. Everyone gets the same idea around the exact same time, and we start musing aloud that maybe we should head up the hill and check in on Chi Lam and George. Rockstar-John (so named for taking the extra-climbing hit) heads up the backside of Eden to hunt them down. Another 15-ish minutes later John rolls back with some bad news. Chi Lam’s tire had gone flat and he went down pretty hard on his descent. He seemed fine, but Charlotte was taking him to the hospital just to be sure. Eeep! Definitely not our teammate’s luckiest day.

We eventually regrouped and rolled back out, a man down and a bit subdued (of course, you can probably blame a good bit of that on the heat!). Comparatively speaking, the back half of the ride was uneventful. Our pace slowed (and voices faded) as the day wore on. I think it takes awhile for the “don’t blow everything out while your fresh in the cool morning” message to sink in… but we finished as a group, intact. Given the fact that I’d been sick all week (and was, in fact, still sick on Saturday), I thought my ride was pretty strong. I did go ahead and give myself an extra “stop being sicky” recovery day by skipping Sunday’s ride, only to spend the day hiking the Armstrong woods (super steep trail side) instead! Hopefully everyone will be back on the bikes – not sick, not injured and ready to keep things uneventful –  for our first buddy ride on the 4th.

I’m selling tickets to the July 25th, 6pm game of the San Jose Giants (not to be confused with the San Fran team of the same name). If you’re a bay area local and want to come out for food, beer and (of course) baseball – just let me know! Tickets are only $10, and these games are a ton of fun. Trust me – if you’ve never had a chance to see the SJ Giants play… it’s a ball (pun vaguely intended). The atmosphere is excellent (and so are the garlic fries), so I hope you can make it. I know I’ll be there! Most of you local types have my contact info… but if not, leave a comment and I’ll send you everything you need to know.

Can’t make the game? Too far away? Hate baseball? Fear the people… or maybe the sunshine? No worries – you can still help out the cause! Just click my “Support Me” link above (or my inline link here) to get to my fundraising page and make a secure online donation. Every dollar helps make someone’s life just a little bit better. Click now!

Moving on. We started the night with a few quick laps up and down a short, flat stretch of road to get warmed up. As Tuesday was the first hot day/night in… well, forever… that really didn’t take too long. By the time we were ready to start climbing (Concepcion again to start), I was pretty sure that I’d moved past “warm” and onto “overheated.” Shockingly, our trainers had little sympathy to offer when I pointed this out. My helpful commentary earned me the Al equivalent of a “Ya mule! Up the hill!” (actually those might have been his exact words). And off I went.

We climbed Concepion twice while our trainer team worked out the timer administrative details. Everyone was given a pink sticky name tags for their helmet (I can only assume that we’ll be traveling SO fast uphill that only big pink stickers would be readable), and then put in a line by some order known only to the coaches. As an aside, my first two trips up and downhill were pretty ok.  They were slow, but considering I was sick all week… not terrible. We were fired uphill in 40 second intervals (not literally), with instructions to call our name (apparently the nametags were only a backup?) to the coach at the summit to record our time. Everyone was then to keep circling at the top of the hill to stay warm, and we’d move on as a group.

My climb went fairly well. I start much quicker up than the last two rounds – amazing what the threat of a timer will do for ya – and kept a good pace for the first half or so. Somewhere right around the middle of the hill, my body remembered that it was sick and tired (literally) and I started to slow down significantly. Still, there’s something to be said for really knowing your route. You know exactly how far you’ve got to push before you can take it easy again. Concepcion really isn’t a particularly long or hard climb… so I kicked my tail into gear and hammered to the top as best as I could. It was probably still a bit slow, but hey – that just means my next test will show even more improvement, right?!

Once everyone had finished the time trial, we headed over to another hi… ahem… excuse me. Another “reverse downhill” for some more climbing fun. (Thanks for that little gem, Al! Gotta love coach-speak.) We did two trips up and down Purissima which, while a bit harder than our first climb, was a nice change of pace. The hill has an easy but quick descent which, if timed right, will carry you most of the way through the next incline — which is pretty much what we were supposed to work on.

And then, just when we thought the night was over, the trainers gathered us in the parking lot of Foothill College for our first cycling drill: one-legged pedaling laps. Oh yeah. You read that right. We had to unclip one foot and circle the parking lot three times, powered only by the outside leg. The idea was to focus balancing most of your weight on the outside leg and a little inside hand. Apparently helps in cornering later. The drill was actually pretty entertaining… once I managed to clip out on my non-dominant foot. (For the record, since my fall I’ve only ever clipped out on the left, so that was harder than it sounds!)

All I can say is I’ve never appreciated having two legs more than on the laps that I was allowed to use both! Between that drill and torture-class the day before, my glutes and hip flexors were screaming. Did I even know the *word* hip flexor before I started this cycling season?! I think not! We had a quick and mercifully flat ride back to our start spot, and were then released for our hard-won Chipotle reward. Oh… and up next week? One leg, one hand drills. So much to look forward to!

Rode “recovery” ride. (Last week in quotes, first long ride next weekend.) Bigger group than normal – Yay! Garmin died in parking lot. Threw back in truck disgustedly. No data for whole trip. Annoyed. Rolled out. Rode slow. Saddle FIRE issues. Must exchange seat ASAP. Talked a bunch. Yay! Socializing didn’t distract me from pain. Boo! Probably shoulda skipped ride and traded in. Rode slow some more. Climbed …carefully, but in high gear. Good train on Alpine. Most agonizing Foothill stretch ever. Tried to ride with tail hanging behind saddle. Made it back, didn’t cry. Miss my data. Don’t like riding blind (with no numbers), and definitely not in hurty mode. Ate breakfast, waddled home. New saddle Monday for sure.

Whelp… that about covers it. Loving the new format? Hope not! I feel so… incomplete. So few words written!! ARGH!!! The torture! Don’t worry, I’ll make up for it next time.  In fact, have a little food review to tide you over:

OK, so the title makes it sounds like this post is going to include some manner of psychobabble and possibly the phrase “getting in touch with your feelings.” Rest assured, Team in Training has not added a psychological health component to its regimen… at least not insofar as I’m aware . (I do assume that TNT cares about our mental health in that “keeping confessed serial killers off the team” kind of way… but I’m guessing that is more an informal rule that doesn’t come into play often). No, the trust I’m speaking of is that which comes only from practice riding in the second scariest sounding cycling formation every — a paceline. (Pretty sure peloton is first. And there’s probably others if you count mountain bike rides. Or track races. But who counts those?)

Yep folks, it’s that time of the season. We’ve been split into our ride group teams, and will be traveling in pacelines for the rest of our training. Of course quite a few participants are fairly new to cycling (or at least new to riding in a line), so the coaches gave their (always) excellent off-bike demonstration before we started. After a rapid review of hand signals, voice commands, positioning techniques and other time-tested tricks, we broke into our groups and got ready to ride. BTW – You can click through to my Flickr for more pics from this ride.

Coaches paceline demo

My group (Go Cs! …no, not bra sizes… Middle speed!! We won’t have an “official” name for another couple weeks or so.) is the largest this season – and a good portion of ‘em have never ridden a paceline before. I was a bit nervous about having so many people (and so many NEW people) all in one group… but I’m happy to report that my fears were pretty quickly laid to rest. That’s not to say that we were riding 6″ off each wheel out of the gate or anything, but the group was absolutely excellent at keeping a steady pace. We rocked out with minimal accordion action, even on the first trip out. At the end of the lovely (but ridiculously windy) Cañada Road, our stand-in coach, Ron, gave us pointers to work on for the trip back.

Getting a few tips

And from there on out, we did nothing but improve. I don’t think we’ll be riding each others tails (literally) for another few weeks at least… but compared to my first season pacelining, I think we’re already looking pretty good. We made a total of three out and back loops (Cañada @ Edgewood to 92 and back again). Our speed was pretty consistent, which is more important than fast(!), and I think people started to feel more comfortable by the end. On the very last half trip out, Ron had us push the pace up a bit – just to challenge the group and make sure everyone got a good workout. We definitely flew (compared to the other rounds), and absolutely earned another helping of banana bread at the rest stop!

I forgot to hit laps for the data… so there’s no easy comparisons between loops. But I do have all the other bits!

In quick, elementary school count-off style, we were divided into 6 groups – each of which had its own coach. My coach, Jamii (yes, we were the dynamic, multiple spelling’d Jamie-duo for the evening), gave us a pretty simple run down of the gameplan for the night. Ride up the hill, get feedback. Ride back down, get feedback. The only real specifics to start were 1) anyone riding a triple had to climb in the middle ring (build that super leg strength!) and 2) everyone needed to be in the drops coming downhill. Simple instructions set, we were off!

The team was fortunate to have a very high coach to participant ratio, which meant every person got a good amount of individualized attention. Within the first out and back round, I’d learned that:

• I need to bend my elbows more. A lot more. Stupid stiff-armed positioning is definitely not helping my ever-grumpy shoulders and neck.
• My hand grip for steeper climbs is… less than ideal. I should move to the top bar (to get more push-pull action), or stand up to power through the tough parts.
• You really don’t need the baby ring for all hills. Even though we did start with a pretty tame climb, I easily crushed seven repeats in the middle ring.
• My cadence for climbing needs to speed up. Much like my cadence in general. I’m pushing too hard and unnecessarily beating up my body.
• I should sit back further on the saddle while descending, and lift the hiney up slightly when going over the bumps. It lowers your center of gravity even more than just getting in the drops, and getting your tail up makes it less likely that you’ll have some crazy bump and flip action.

After the first round, we pretty much climbed the hill (six more times!!!) at our own pace. The coaches floated throughout the riders and gave pointers where necessary. Surprisingly, I got a few “attagirls” on my descending position. Apparently being somewhat terrified of going downhill and doing so in the correct form are not mutually exclusive. Who knew?!

I’m pretty sure the Concepcion climb is a bit more… tame than Mount Eden, despite being similar in length. I breezed through my seven sets without many issues, whereas I typically felt like death by trip five at our old spot. I did nearly burst my heart open the one time I decided to climb standing for a bit – but that’s more a factor of nerves and poor technique than anything to do with the hill itself. That’s not to say this new route wasn’t a good workout though! I got some great pointers each trip up the hill and putting them into practice definitely left me feeling the tired legs as we made our way back to the park (especially as those poor guys were still recovering from Monday’s IPF torture-session!!).

I’ve been told that this week was the “easy intro session” — get ‘em hooked and keep ‘em coming back style — but I guess only actually doing it again will tell! Next week we’re in for baseline tests (so we have comparison points later in the season) and possibly a new location. Fun times!

Oh… and I’ve got Garmin data, with cadence and laps. Go me!

Well… that probably depends on your definition of lose really. Julie and I decided we’d check out the Monday and Wednesday morning sessions. Of course she immediately “had a work thing come up” and was a no-show for Monday, but she did manage to make it for the mid-week class. Morning training means being awake and in Mountain View, ready to work out by 7am. Loss #1: Sleep! The class itself is primarily composed of a series of drills (most seemingly made up on the fly by The Master of Torture, aka Al) designed to improve your balance, strengthen your core and legs, increase your flexibility, etc. You work your way around the room lifting, squatting, lunging and balancing (or falling) – all in 40 second intervals beeped out by a merciless digital stopwatch. Loss #2: Sense of shame when you start mentally begging a watch for relief.

The drills are punctuated by a variety of grunts, moans, whines and curses… and (thankfully) a good bit of laughter. The instructors and the participants are a lot of fun; fully willing to participate in the joking (and the swearing). I quickly discovered that I’m not as in shape as I thought I was… and I had never really thought I was very well off to begin with! Loss #3: A bit of ego! Sometimes they put you in pairs so that you are responsible not only for your own pain but also someone else’s. With a bit of luck, you can find a balance between working yourself out and killing your partner… but it’s a delicate dance. Loss #4: The friend you’re forced to torture.

About 10 minutes after you’re convinced that you cannot possibly lift your tail in the air again, Al calls for the “happy strings” — which is really just code for a whole other kind of torture: stretching. Voluntarily strangling my own legs (and hands) with a bit of rope is apparently supposed to be “rewarding” (but still manages to be quite painful). Even just walking out of the gym, you realize that your legs will never quite be the same. Loss #5: Ability to walk normally for several days after class.

And yet, with all the losses tallied… there still seems to be an even greater gain to be had (or these people are SO adept at non-invasive brainwash tactics that they made us believe there are). Despite all my bitching, moaning and groaning, I really DID enjoy the class a lot. Even though you hurt a ton while you’re working out – and definitely even more the next day – the folks (classmates and teachers) keep you laughing enough that you don’t really think about it. I can’t say how beneficial this will all be on bike come long ride time (I mean… I’ve really only had one tiny ride since trying the first classes), but I’m definitely (and oddly) excited and hopeful. I think Julie and I will be rockin’ the M/W early class starting next week. Bring on the PAIN!

When we finally hit the road, the stupid meter was working and I decided to put some of my “knowledge” into practice by focusing on keeping my cadence between 85-95 rpms. (Knowledge goes in quotes since I was actually just taking the advice of one of my coaches… I can’t speak to its validity firsthand!) I shifted down a couple notches and really concentrated on keeping my legs spinning. Somewhere around three miles in, I realized that I was moving so fast that I had dropped the rest of my team. Wow! This fast cadence thing really works, right?! Wrong. As it turns out, one of group busted his chain immediately upon leaving the parking lot, and they’d all stopped to make sure he was OK to get back to his car. Apparently I was so “in the zone” working on my revolutions that I didn’t hear their cries (for me to wait up, not for help… thankfully). Yays for tunnel vision!

I pulled over and waited for the rest of the crew before continuing on my spastic spinning circuit. Once we’d all regrouped, I refocused on the goal… and darted away again. And that’s pretty much how I spent the first half of the ride. I quickly discovered that 90 revs per minute and my big chain ring don’t really mix well. Same deal for 90 rpm and my heart rate. I definitely felt like I was pushing less weight and going a bit faster… but was dropping energy much quicker than normal. I was grateful for the quick arrival of the rest stop, where I put a few new foods to the test.

The climb up Arastradero was pretty quick (although I discovered a completely inability to keep my legs churning anywhere near goal levels). Don and I had a great tiny paceline descent down Alpine – over 30 on the flats!  He then dropped off to wait for the rest of the group while I continued along with my spin-but-don’t-flail exercises. And that really was the rest of the ride. I tried to keep my cadence up and heart rate down, while traversing our well known route. The few conversations with team mates that I did attempt were punctuated with me either cursing my legs or cursing the bike’s still-terribly-clicky middle ring gear.

I rolled into the parking lot with almost the exact same timing as last week, and immediately (well, immediately after breakfast) left my bike to be de-clickified (aka serviced). I am happy to report that the cadence meter stayed functional for the entire ride, even if focusing on its data did nearly kill me.

Up next this week? Our first hill repeats of the season! Stay tuned…

The team met up for our time trial (er… ummm… “timed ride” — don’t want to unduly threaten the new folks) last Saturday. We were quickly divided into ride groups by expected speed, and lined up along the parking lot awaiting the signal from our benevolent (or at least pretty patient) Time Mistress. As there were seven sets of cyclists, we opted for number designators rather than multiple iterations of the “fasterererers.” I requested a middle group, and ended up riding out with a small team of Fours.

The loop was a quick 11.5 mile run around Portola Valley. I made a fast start down Portola Road and (surprisingly) climbed the “easy side” of Sand Hill at a reasonable clip. Seriously! I’m pretty proud of climbing anything in the middle ring at 10mph! I managed to pass my fair share of early groups (slower riders start first so that we all end around the same time), but was quickly eclipsed by the Sixes… and probably some of the Fives on our descent. What can I say, I still play those downgrades pretty cautiously — although I’m *starting* to feel more confident.

I very nearly took a spill just before our turn onto Santa Cruz. I was buzzing along, chasing someone’s tail when a car full of rabidly raving hounds (or, more accurately, a pair of woofing fuzzballs) pulled along side of me. The noise pretty much terrified me and I swerved a bit… just enough to clip my front wheel on a good sized orange rock. I managed to keep the bike upright, but the rock did fly into my chin, leaving a nice little nick on my left leg. Jamie’s first injury of the season? Done.

And then… the devil’s road (aka Alpine). It looks flat. Heck, I’d swear to you that parts of it look to be downhill. But it absolutely is not. In fact, the stupid route is steadily climbing, teeny tiny bits at a time. Your paces starts to drop 16… 14… 12… 11. Eleven?! I start giving myself crap (in my own head of course). I’ve been flying the whole way! It’s only eight miles in! How is it possible that my legs are so blown that I can’t stay above a freakin’ ELEVEN on FLATS?? And just for extra bonus fun, my new bike absolutely refuses to shift into the gear I want. I can go one up or one down… but the middle front ring, 3rd-ish biggest back one pops and clicks and sounds something like Chittychittybangbang every time I drop in. So I grind the Alpine miles out in too large of a gear (and at too low of a speed), kicking my own ass (in my mind) the whole way.

I hit Portola Road again, and the world realigns. My legs can once again spin. I pick up the pace and roll into the parking lot after about 43 minutes all told, irritated with my performance. I toss the clicky bike into the car and recap my ride with Coach Keith. I complain about how much I slowed on Alpine, only to have him remind me that the road is uphill in that direction. Light dawns. Oh. Right. I’ve only done this route three times now. And I ride it super fast the other way every Sunday. I knew that! DOH!  Of course, I still think I could/should have done a bit better – but I’m a lot more calm after that (hey, at least I wasn’t actually utterly burnt in eight frikkin’ miles!). As for the bike, she’s probably due for her 30 day tune up; a newly stretched cable is probably futzing with the gears a bit.

With evil hill memories quickly fading, I spend some time directing the participants to our various bike skills clinics. Our coaches are drilling riders on braking, core control, bike lifting and slalom stations. I lend a hand mainly by taking pictures and cheering, and was glad to see that a lot of people seemed to learn at least a little something new.

Riding the lines

Weaving through the cones

Lifting the bike

Once people finished their clinics, we all headed to our team breakfast at Mike’s cafe. Despite our best “staggered arrival” efforts, I’m pretty sure we overwhelmed the waitstaff instantaneously. I went with a well deserved repeat of my last meal here – belgian waffle and bacon – and enjoyed the opportunity to get to know even more of the folks on our team.

As for the Garmin data, let’s go ahead and declare a Giant Failboat right now. The darn system was definitely working when I rolled out of the parking lot, but somewhere around my first stop light I must have just barely nudged the sensor. We lose rpms somewhere around 15 minutes in… and I can guarantee you that I didn’t do the last 30 minutes as a no-pedaling descent! I was so confident in my installation skills from the night before that I never rechecked the monitor after the first couple miles (I even sent Don a celebratory email… only to find out on the online player that the signal dropped). Oh well, everything else is still there!

A Few Things I Wanted to Mention, Just in Case You Didn’t Know:

• Gearing up
  • Invest in comfortable gear. Touch the fabrics, try things on and pick stuff that feels good to you and on you. If you’re lucky, it might come cheap… but even $150 investment once is going to pay you back tenfold when you can ride 8 hours without thinking about chafing.
  • For the love of gawd, wear bike shorts. Yeah, they look ridiculous. But you know that… umm… uncomfortable feeling “down there” that you’ve been hoping will go away for the last two weeks? Not gonna happen in cotton workout shorts. I promise. Suck it up and join the “Spandex Adult Diaper Club.” You’ll be in good company!
  • When you get your fancy new bike shorts? Leave the undies at home. Yeah, I’m saying it (in case you missed the shopping clinic). Cycle shorts are meant to work without them, and trust me – you’ll appreciate the friction  minimization.
  • Layer. Layer layer layer. Figure out what works for you, but in this silly state, it will absolutely be cold in the mornings and (at least sometimes) scalding by noon. You’ll be riding all day, in and out of shade, at varying degrees of workout intensity. There is no good reason to make yourself suffer from cold or hot (on top of everything else!).
  • Sunscreen up before you leave the house. Even on cloudy days. Even if you don’t burn. Ever. You arms almost never move while biking, and your thighs are exposed a lot. Four to eight hours, even without searing sunshine and you WILL fry something. Believe me, two weeks of riding with a recovering burn is not the way to go. I actually spray on Neutrogena sunscreen before I even get dressed (less chance of missing any spots). Works wonders!
• Filling the tank
  • Eat breakfast. I know you never do. Neither do I. Force yourself to get in the habit anyway. Even just a little oatmeal/cereal/clif bar and a banana. You’ll need that stored fuel on long rides.
  • Oh yeah… eat bananas. Or anything else with a good amount of potassium. Balanced meals are one of the keys to avoiding muscle strain, and most of us are terrible at it. Find something you can eat with a good amount of potassium and avoid the terrible muscle spasms/pulled calves that I’ve ended up with on at least two separate hill repeats.
  • If you’re even remotely picky about food, start testing your ride snacks early. Yes, even if you never eat while you exercise. You’re gonna have to get used to it, or you absolutely will end up on the side of the road bonked. My tummy is super sensitive, so I only eat a few things (although I love to test new ones constantly!). Find something that works early, then stock up. 
  • Drink more than you think you need to. Your body is probably always dehydrated anyway. We’ll be in the sun. Lots. Water (and electrolyte drinks) are your friend. 
• On the road
  • You will fall at least once. Hopefully at slow speed and in front of minimal people… but it’s going to happen (and it’ll hurt less than you think – unless you count wounds to pride). There’s no use being scared about it all the time — the coaches will teach you everything they can to keep you safe. And when it does happen? Use your bruises as sympathy ploys for donations.
  • Clipless pedals are not as hard as you think they’re gonna be, and they really do make a ton of difference in both your power and safety. If you’re thinking of switching, go to a good shop and ask if you can try some out early in the season. Nothing sucks more than being the person learning a new pedal system two weeks before the big ride!
  • Similarly, get familiar on the gears with your bike early. Learn to shift up and down when appropriate. Ask coaches for help. As a good friend of mine can attest: climbing every hill in your biggest ring is not the way to go through an entire season.
  • Downshift as you roll up to a stoplight (I still vaguely suck at this). Having to push off from a standstill in your highest gear will blow your knees faster than anything. Two clicks down makes a world of difference!
  • Go to the hills training. I’ve done a season going to every optional training, and one going to almost none. If you can do only one optional thing, I promise you hills training is the one to pick. You’ll hate it at first. Everyone does. But you’ll get stronger and enjoy your rides a lot more. 
  • Pacelining is not as scary as it looks or sounds. It will take awhile to get used to riding in a line (trust is earned, right?)… but when you’re only having to take the full force of the wind 10-30% of the time, you’ll appreciate it. 
  • You’ll almost always feel good when you start the ride. Learn to reign in your racehorse tendencies and don’t blow it all off just out of the gate. You’re gonna need that energy four hours from now – do yourself a favor and keep a steady pace!

I’m sure I’ll think of more (probably as soon as I push the “publish” button), but this list probably covers off the basics. Cycling is really not that scary, or that hard. Be smart, ask questions often, use a bit of common sense, and (I swear!) you’ll have fun.

Coach Don, utterly distraught over my lack of proper Garmin data, circled up to chat over the “Problem of the Missing Cadence.” As mentioned in the last post, we quickly discovered the source of the issue, and, thanks to Don’s handy set of tools and zip ties, solved the missing pedal button in mere minutes. When we all hit the road a few short minutes later, my computer treated me to a “wheel size calculated” message, which assured me (falsely) that we’d rectified the problem.

The reigned in pace of Saturday’s kickoff ride had barely whetted my appetite for bike time. I hit Foothill feeling strong, and immediately jumped my pace up to take the lead of the pack. And that’s pretty much where I stayed (usually less than a light’s worth of gain ahead) for the rest of the ride. I fear that I wasn’t super sociable for most of the trip; conversing mainly at stoplights and then at our rest stop. But my body was screaming to “gogogo” (even if, for me, that translates to a mildly unimpressive 15mph)… so, I went!

About midway through the ride, one of our other participants, Butch, caught up to us and rode with the group for awhile. He pulled Don and I down an excellent speedy stretch of Alpine before breaking off to join his family for breakfast. For the record – my “fast” more resembles those two’s “moderate pace”… but man was it fun chasing their tails! I made a break from the group again as we rode through the Stanford back to Foothill stretch, and spent the rest of my ride leap-frogging some snarky iPod-sporting dude in a club jersey. Side note safety tip: don’t ride with headphones in your ears people – it’s almost impossible to hear anything at 20mph without adding likely terrible music to the mix! 

Sadly, my pace slowed considerably in the last 3-5 miles of the ride. You remember that “Oops forgot to downshift out of the giant gear before that stoplight” knee twinge from a few weeks back? Yeah… that bad boy is still kickin’ around. I’ve been suffering an intermittent joint clicking ever since, but (oddly enough) it usually only presents when I’m going from standing to sitting or vice versa – never when spinning. Or, more accurately, “never when spinning” until I push off a couple times on that leg in too high of a gear! Pair that with a breakfast devoid of key vitamins (potassium) and you end up with a killer “broke knee and ready-to-seize-on-the-next-big-pull-up calves” combo deal. So I grudgingly eased up, and managed to eke out an average speed that will still 2-3 mph above my last few shots at the same loop. Woohoo!

Now, in case you were worried, I assure that I have not been lax in my food reviews despite our current short rides circuits. I couldn’t justify much food on the 15 mile stints, so I had to gather a couple weeks of tests before posting. No standout performances to speak of… but a few solid “middle of the road” competitors. 

As for the ride data, this should be the last week that cadence is missing. It turns out that the pedal sensor was too far from the frame reader, although it was close enough to the wheel monitor — hence the “wheel size” message. I just spent a good thirty minutes or so futzing with the positioning out in the garage (In the cold. And the dark. The things I do for you people!), so hopefully we’ll be all set for tomorrow’s timed ride.

Upon arrival in Los Altos, I stumbled bleary eyed through the crowd, applying my name tag, wrangling up participants and guzzling my pre-ride fuel. Now I’m sure there is some cycling theorist/armchair physician/sports research junkie just dying to tell me how terrible a caffeine infusion just before working out actually is for me. I probably even believe them. But I also believe that I won’t ride far (or survive long) sleeping on a bike… so I’m willing to take the risk on this one. Lucky for me, I’m in good enough shape to take the 15 mile easy kickoff loop in less than “super optimal athlete condition.”

The first meeting of the season is always exciting (yay – we’re really doing this). And long (wow, do the coaches and staff have a lot they need to tell us). And a bit nerve wracking (how many of you are new to clips again?!). With so much to cover, including learning how to change a tire, it’s no wonder that we didn’t roll out of the parking lot until close to 9:30. While I was cold and quite antsy to get started by then, I can happily say that I was also properly caffeinated!  Once we were sure everyone could fix a flat and that the proper forms were all in, the participants self selected into the “fast, faster and fastest” groups to stagger the start.

For my very first ever ride as a mentor, I stuck to the middle of the “fasters” group. It was actually an interesting experience riding where someone else was setting the pace (and actually being comfortable there, instead of always chasing my ride group — preseason training pays off!), and just spending time getting to know the new team members. I had a lot of fun chatting with new people and learning why they joined TNT. Oh… and shouting. There is nothing I like more about Team in Training rides than the shouting! I think that we aim to be the safest and *loudest* group on the road. “On your left,” “car back,” “downshift,” “left turn!” It probably sounds silly, and probably is a bit obnoxious in some cases… but I would kill to have the majority of cyclists be as aware and communicative as we try to be. Not dying is good! No… really! 

At the crest of our first teensy weensy climb, we pulled into a parking lot for the “OMG, you back tire is flat!” (aka the “how well were you listening this morning?”) surprise tire changing clinic. You guys remember this from my seasons right? Every participant had to flatten their back tire and then go through all the steps of changing it. Despite an awful lot of moaning and groaning, I think most folks did surprisingly well — no pinched tubes or sliced hands so far! As a side note, I’ll likely be buying stock in speed levers soon. They really are the greatest piece of plastic known to cycling. My group was anxious to get back on the road, and were some of the first folks out of the parking lot. (Seriously… I almost didn’t notice them leave and had to sprint to catch up!)

The remainder of the ride was fairly uneventful. We had a couple folks with clip accidents of thankfully minor severity and to mercifully small audiences. I almost got a portion of my group lost with a single wrong turn on a really similar road name… but was luckily steered back onto the right path before we’d gone more than 20 feet. Hey – it would’ve just been a bit more climbing anyway! I’m pretty sure we did hit a wrong turn somewhere in the last half mile or so, but as we made it back to our starting point intact and on time, I’m not too worried. We celebrated our first official team ride with a “Meet the Honorees” breakfast, a bit of mingling, and a gear raffle. Lots of food, lots of prizes, and lots of fun.

The first ride was definitely a success, although I definitely could have ridden longer. But that’s the point of the early training right? To try and keep my training level just a squish bit ahead of my group so that I can effectively be there to support them! As for the data piece, I finally figured out what was missing on my cadence meter… when I got home. I accidentally left the pedal button on my old bike (whoopsie), so you won’t see it for this ride. 

 I’ll be adding all my cycling adventure goodness on this site from now on, so make sure your links are up to date! I just know you all have me bookmarked on every computer you own… so get to it!

We rolled out shortly after 10 and quickly arrived at the first climb. I was feeling really good at the start and attacked the “hill” in my front middle chain ring. I powered to the top only to find that my Garmin was completely failing (not recording cadence or heart rate), and had to stop and spend a couple minutes both waiting for everyone to catch up and trying to fix my gear. As it turns out, we only managed to fix half of the problem… and then I forgot to turn it back on for a couple miles, so my data is utterly borked this week. After a small snafu in which I thought I dropped my chain after the descent (I actually just dropped two rings), the ride continued without much drama.

The rest of the loop wasn’t hugely exciting… at least not in a storytelling kind of way. I started the ride feeling strong, and despite trying to burn off the energy by attacking some baby climbs, was restless for most of the ride ride. I felt fast (and darted ahead of the group a few times), but still had to make a game of chasing Hilton – who was definitely kicking my tail. The group ended up spread out a good bit for most of the ride, meeting up every few miles to refuel, check the route sheet, and chat a bit. Despite a good number of breaks, our overall finish time was about the same as the week before. My average moving time was actually up, although my missing data log doesn’t show it very well.

We all hit the Safeway parking lot just before noon and decided that we’d earned a good brunch reward. With belgian waffles as a requirement (per Julie), we quickly settled on Mike’s Cafe as the location of choice. I think everyone enjoyed the chance to eat food mostly guilt free and attacked the breakfast fare with gusto. I jumped on the belgian waffles bandwagon (plus bacon) and thoroughly enjoyed the food. And the company. But mostly the food… Hey! I worked hard!!

After a minor mishap involving me, a brand new bike and a dropped chain 500 yards out of the parking lot, we started with a baby climb up Sand Hill Rd. True to form, Hilton all but sprinted up the thing, leaving Julie, Mike and I to follow along behind him and varying speeds. We reached the summit and were treated to fresh roadkill deer (ew) and a nice decent. Or, more accurately, a descent that would have been nice had a minivan not raced up behind me and honked loudly for… existing (at least as far as I can tell). Asshat. Because startling and knocking over a cyclist going 30mph or so who isn’t even in your lane is such a good plan? Apparently he thought I should take a major highway on-ramp in order to better stay out of his way. Grrrrrrrr!!

Moving on. I spent most of the ride focusing on two main things: learning my new shifters and chasing Hilton’s tail. I’ve heard you improve the most when struggling to keep pace with people who are faster than you. I’m not sure if it’s true yet… but trying to catch him – or even just trying not lag too far behind – was certainly more challenging! The new bike was both fantastic and frustrating. I’ve never had a smoother ride (oh how I love thee already carbon frame!), and the bike felt very responsive on those “I can almost get him, or at least stay ahead of the guy pulling the baby in a cart” sprints… but I was *really* struggling with the stupid half-click front chain ring positions. In some ways I felt like I was back in time two years, trying to how to learn how to shift all over again. At least I didn’t have to re-learn how to clip too!

Beyond some terrible gearing noises (and a second dropped chain just before we ended), there isn’t much to complain about. California apparently realized that Memorial day is traditionally the start of summer and gave us absolutely beautiful weather. All the roads we hit were nicely paved, and everyone was riding pretty strong – if a bit strung out (definitely still some wildly different speeds). I tested and shared a few new food/drink samples and actually found a couple winners! (I seem to be cultivating popularity on rides by bringing enough snacks to share… even when they kinda suck. Guess I’m not the only one who likes to try out new eats!)

We celebrated our ride success and the holiday with the traditional Memorial Day meal – P.F. Changs – and vowed to hit that same route up again soon. As it turns out, we’ll be riding it again tomorrow!

OH! And for all my data nerds: Garmin is in the process of shutting down MotionBased and migrating to their new site, Garmin Connect. Most of my activities have already been moved over, save a few larger ones that will lag a few weeks. The new site is pretty awesome — I love the look and feel, and the player functionality — so I’ll likely be uploading all my rides there going forward (MotionBased is actually shutting down for good later this year… I’m just trying to stay ahead of the curve!). That said, GarminConnect does not yet have any ViewPorts that I can export for this site, so for now you’ll have to deal with screenshots from my dashboard. Never fear – they’ll still click through to all the ubergeek info! Check it out!

Apparently my 23 mile ride just before this test loop had taken more out of me than expected. Almost as soon as I started uphill, I felt like my energy reserves were totally tapped – just this side of Bonkland. Darn it! Utterly worn down is not really how I imagined testing a bike. Still, I didn’t know when I’d be back in Los Altos (or when I’d feel not guilty enough to ask someone to set a machine up for me again). I made three full laps around the neighborhood before I decided it was head back or pass out. By that time I’d learned pretty much what I needed to: I liked the bike, hated the saddle, and failed at the new shifters.

Big decisions are definitely not best made while starving. I gave the store the pretty ride back, reclaimed my slightly abused one and headed for the time honored cyclists standard refuel meal – Mexican. I recruited my two riding buddies for the “talk me out of” (aka “talk me into”) buying that bike conversation. Their arguments were persuasive (seriously — that pair made some surprisingly good points), but I still wasn’t sold. We parted ways at the end of the meal, intending to chat more at Monday’s scheduled ride.

I made it all the way to the car. I really did. I sat there and thought a bunch. Called the boy. Thought some more. And then, in case you somehow missed my 45 million tweets this weekend, I went back in and bought a bike! (Yes, I do feel a bit of shame for using the word tweet in such a trendy way. No, that doesn’t stop me from doing it. Stop judging me!) It took almost 2 hours to get her fitted for me, geared up and paid for… but by 4pm I was on my way home with a two bikes in the back of the truck. Don’t even get me started on what a pain it was to fit them both in there!

It was too late (and I was too tired) by the time I got home to ride again Saturday night. I contented myself with a bunch of pictures and the knowledge that I had an extra day of riding due to the holiday weekend. For your viewing pleasure, my new baby (kickass name still TBD).

At the store
Back at home

As previously mentioned, she’s a Trek 5.2 Madone WSD. I made a few swaps from stock in the store – higher stem, Terry Fly saddle – but mostly I have what’s shown on the site. By Sunday night I’d also picked up and/or migrated over the necessities (bottle cages, tail pouch, Garmin), and had everything ready to roll for a Memorial Day break-in ride. She’s new and she’s mine… just in time for summer season kickoff!!

And man are there are lot of exciting, new, and (so far) mostly terrible things to try this season! I’m trying to front-load my testing phase (no sense bonking on a 60mi ride due to lack of electrolyte drinks), which means I’ve already started ripping through the bright neon pouches.

No good news on the drink front so far, but the chewy snacks are faring well. I’ve got at least a dozen or more options till to burn through, so I’m still hopeful for a few more gems to come out!

Namely, the quick. Julie, Hilton and I set out to ride the Los Altos loop yesterday. I’ve ridden this area an awful lot (we typically use this as the “recovery” loop after long rides during the training season), but don’t know that I’ve ever really described it much. The route is a pretty easy 23 miles with very little climbing, a great rest stop at an open space preserve, and long stretches of flats along the Foothill Expressway. Now Foothill is one of *the* most popular roads for cyclists in the area. It boasts a very wide shoulder, access to several of the more popular climb routes nearby, and generally pleasing scenery. Annoyingly (and somewhat surprisingly given its popularity), the road also seems to have stoplights placed every hundred feet or so.

Most days the lights don’t really matter. If you make one and keep a pretty steady pace… you’re likely to make them all. If you’re really lucky (or remembered to sacrifice that goat), you get to giggle at the angry faces of all the “super fast” racer types that ZOOOOOM by you at warp speed only to get caught again and again at each intersection. Yesterday, however, Lady Light Fairy was not on our side. Or, more accurately, was only on the fast people’s side (maybe they have better goats?). We rolled out around 10:45 and hit Foothill at a brisk 18mph pace. Hilton must’ve been feeling pretty good, because he dropped us in the first 3 miles, and with the light gods blessing, was out of sight in no time. Julie and I limped along behind, catching pretty much every single stop between the start point and our first turn. We didn’t even try to catch him after the third cursed light.

The three of us had a quick exchange upon leaving Foothill, in which Hilton yelled “Meetcha at the rest stop, I’m going for some extra punishment today,” and then we split up again. He took the extra climbing miles, while Julie and I opted for the no-cars route along Old Page Mill. Surprisingly, we all pulled into the Arastradero Preserve around the same time for a quick break. I took this opportunity to share my food experimentation tactics with my two unsuspecting (or overly forgiving) ride buddies (you do remember all the samples I bought, right?!). Pretty sure the definition of friendship is being able to say “Wow, this is terrible… try it” — and having them do so willingly. Twice. Separate foot post incoming soon!

The little climb through the preserve went surprisingly quickly for all involved. The three of us regrouped on Alpine for “the best part of the route,” which is basically a few mile stretch of very fast, slightly descending, well paved road. We rolled along at a good clip, despite being nearly killed at least three times by Biker Bees (fast riders who announce their presence only by the buzz of their tires – with no understanding that a quick “on your left” is less likely to kill their pace than the accident we’re gonna have upon collision). The headwinds coming back around Stanford and then back on Foothill slowed the… ummm… less in-shape (insane?)… of us considerably, and our group ended up splitting again for the remainder of the ride. Still, we all rolled back into the parking lot in pretty close time — and regrouped for shopping and food fun. Overall, a good “getting back on the bike after two weeks slack” trip.

Motion Based ride data

And if you’re gonna do something, best to go big… right? True to my signature OCD-gone-cyclist-style, I’ve thrown myself behind a hefty bit of research, employing exhaustive amounts of interweb digging, magazine reading, and in-person touching. Surprisingly, there have been a lot of new developments in the “almost a year” since I was last stalking pretty gear on a regular basis. Luna makes wearable chick gear now? And so does Mavic? Gu and about 10 other sports food companies all launched fruit chews?! There’s so much to catch up on! Two weeks before season start, and I’m in for four new jerseys (which I can’t even wear to TNT rides), two pair of shorts (one’s going back!), and about $100 in food samples… and I’m still going strong. Guess it’s about time to start hoping my fundraising goes well this season, or I’m gonna get poor quick!! Speaking of, my fundraising site is up and running again… check me out and hook me up!

Even with all that spending already done, the biggest purchase is still yet-to-come. What could *possibly* be left, you ask? No, not a new color Garmin (although I confess to at least considering it). No $300 sport optics glasses, and definitely not another overpriced helmet. Any guesses yet?! Hint: It has two wheels… Got it now? A bike! A bike! A bike! *boingboingboing* That’s right! With my signup form officially processed, fundraising site up, and 5 participants already under my mentor wing, I’m definitely on the hook for the season – which means I can finally bully Charles into keeping his “no falls=new frame” bargain from over a year ago. Nothing is purchased yet… but yet is definitely the operative word. I’ve been doing a TON of research to narrow what I want (and to balance that against what I can afford), and think I’ve finally narrowed it down to:

1. Trek Madone 5.2 WSD newstyle
2. Specialized Ruby Pro newstyle
3. Orbea Diva oldstyle

I’ve lusted after the Diva for a couple years now… but cannot possibly afford it new. So, unless I find a “never ridden, not pink, but sold at super low used price” option – she’s out for this year. Just can’t take the chance of dropping $3.5k on something used and having it show up cracked!! Between the other two, I’m super torn. I ride a Trek now (and she’s only *mostly* evil), but the Specialized is pretty hawtness and gets good reviews. I’ve debated for a couple weeks now, and have finally come to the conclusion that this cannot be solved with internet research; test rides are in order! With a little luck, I should be able to fit them in this weekend (bike stores are totally having Memorial Day sales… right?!), so more to come soon!

Today’s ride was a tough one. It was solo (so no oddball companion stories to share). It was short (no “omg my legs” whining to be had), and the route was a three times out-and-back repeater course (no unexpected hill surprises to be found). I didn’t run anything over, and I didn’t fall down. So… you’re probably wondering by now… what do I have for you? Well, when there’s no giant interesting event to talk about, sometimes summing up all the small things you notice can be pretty amusing. For today this translates to the “I support” and “I cannot tolerate” lists. Oh yeah folks, two for one here. Please try and keep the excited screaming to a minimum. Without further ado:

I support

• Riding outside. Spin class is good (and is what I had planned for today), but wind, sunshine and outdoor smells are better.
• Nicely paved roads, closed to traffic. Descending at 30mph without worry of being hit by a car is a good thing.
• New batteries in the chest strap and cadence meter for my Garmin. My data nerd side will finally get a full-on fix!
• Awesomely cute puppy jerseys (and people who compliment me on wearing them).
• Little kids out riding bikes. Not much bad to say about parents encouraging kids to get active (especially these days).
• Re-riding well known routes and focusing on performance and “all those little things.” Believe it or not, practicing pulling bottles solo (after a season using the devil Camelback) was way helpful.
• Kickass tailwinds. Pushing my average speed from 13-14mph on flats up to 17-20 is frikkin’ fun.
• Attacking from behind on a climb just to see if you can get ahead and stay there. Internal mental contests keep me motivated!

I cannot tolerate

• The friendly tailwind’s flipside: the headwind. Grinding my flats time down to 10mph around some turns is just mean.
• People riding without helmets — especially kids. Hitting your head on pavement at any speed is dangerous, there’s just no reason not to be protected. And parents should know better!!
• Riding serpentine patterns in the middle of the road, especially on a descent. Yeah, the road is closed to traffic… but I’m pretty sure traveling in unpredictable patterns “just for fun” is still a bad idea.
• Tiny kids and the middle of the road. Be sensible folks! If I smack into your 3 year old at 30mph, it’s not gonna go well for either of us (especially if he’s not wearing a frikkin HELMET!!!). Keep ‘em safe, keep ‘em on the shoulder.
• Fixing flats at the crest of a climb with 6 of your friends, when there’s a perfectly good shoulder three feet to your right. C’mon man!
• Forgetting that I’d hurt myself and then pushing off hard to get up a hill on my already stressed out knee (at the very first baby climb). Ow. Just… ow.
• Core classes with an over-abundance of squats which caused aforementioned knee issue.
• Snot rockets. Not much more to say there. EW.

Nothing earth-shattering, but it kept my mind busy. And that enabled me to try and push my speeds up and improve skills without *too much* self abuse. My overall pace was up about 2-3mph from average, and I pushed my descending speed a bit faster than normal with some hawt “core engaged” crouch in the drops action. Not bad for a quick, unplanned, hour long ride! And… because I know you’ve been missing it… the return of Garmin data!!

Motion Based ride data

Giant, hopefully-more-legend-than-actual-devil, hills aside… I’m pretty frikkin’ excited. I’ve wanted to be a mentor since my very first couple weeks of training back in ’07, but have always had to put it off for one reason or another. I’m happy to finally have no new (forseen) marriages, moves, job changes, or broken bones on the horizon, which means I can actually give something back to a group that did an awful lot for me. I was amazingly fortunate to have the mentors and ride support that I did through my two training seasons; I can’t wait to return the favor!

All this means that I’m pretty much bouncing in my chair right now ready to get started. There’s a whole season of ride posts, hill repeats posts and food review posts just *bursting* to be written! Of course the actual training season doesn’t start for another full month, so I have to be content geeking out to bike porn on the computer every day. (Gear people… gear. Where are your minds?!) I’ve been on a (mostly mental, for now) shopping spree for the last week straight; picking out new jerseys, new shorts, and, in moments of true weakness, new bikes. I’ve only actually given in to one jersey, one pair of shorts and a bunch of new tester food so far, but my wallet will be grateful to get training under way!

For now, this week is shaping up to be pretty busy (and kinda cold), but I’m hoping to channel all of this energy into some more self-sponsored training rides come the weekend. I can’t be 100% certain… but more pre-season miles logging (and less gear-related spending) is probably going to make for a better “get a headstart on getting in shape” plan. Probably. Maybe I should do both, just in case…

Now my regular readers (do I still have any of those?) might scoff, “She always posts rides! With charts! Where’s the proof?” My TNT buddies might retain a healthy level of skepticism – “I haven’t seen her on a single Mayhem or TNT ride in months.” And you’d all be right. To the latter point, I’ve been branching out in my riding buddies and tackling shorter rides with smaller groups of friends. It’s not that I don’t love you all anymore… I just couldn’t fathom breaking a five month hiatus with a 140-person, 60+ mile spring team buddy ride! If I’m going to fail miserably, I’d like to keep the audience small. Or nonexistent. So I’ve been rocking 12-25 mile rides solo or in a pair. I have tackled the recovery ride loop a couple times and even went so far as to take my new (and likely soon to be ex) friend on a voluntary hill repeats ride! Well, voluntary on my part… not so much hers! I’ve also been rocking spin class once a week to build up ye ol’ climbing muscles and that cardio fitness, and expect to be in tip-top summer cycling shape in the next month. Well… at least I aim to be.

But what about the former argument? Where have the blog posts been?? Sadly, my laptop had the technological equivalent of a stroke and, due to a high degree of fail on the part of its should-be support staff saviors, it was completely out of commission for about three weeks. Now… this doesn’t *completely* excuse a lack of posts, but was definitely a large contributing factor. The problem has since been rectified. My laptop has returned (brain replacement surgery was successful) *and* my shiny new desktop is here and set up. I should have the Garmin software installed by the end of the week and all will again be right in the “blogs at length about rides and random details” world. A backlog of links, graphs and maps will all be available soon!

As a side note: blogging from one’s iPhone is an utterly ridiculous undertaking, and I will be placing a link to the “Support this blog – buy Jamie a netbook” fund soon.

Mostly, I blame the new job. On top of actually being busy (which means lengthy rambling posts from the cubicle are out), I commute to San Francisco 5 days a week, making anything other than weekend rides are not feasible. Then during the week I can’t find the time to write about the few times I get out. Technically, the commute time on Caltrain would be an excellent window, but I’ve discovered (the hard way) that blogging from an iPhone sucks. Coincidentally, I’ll be taking donations for the “Jamie Needs a MacBook Air Fund” starting next week. Anyway, this my lengthy way of telling you (all 10 of you) that I’m sorry! I hate it when blogs just seem to go dead… but I promise, I’m still around. Just somewhat sporadically.

To bring you up to speed, I can sum up the two (yes… couple = two… I know, sad…) rides I have done pretty quickly. I did the famous “Recovery Ride Loop” both times, and it was mostly uneventful. It is really freakin’ nice to know that I can pull a 23-miler out of my tail (literally) even after a several month hiatus. Granted, I rode it slower than I’d like to – but just knowing that I could, any given weekend, ride a quarter-century is pretty darn cool. I still remember when 12 miles was impossible.

The only vaguely interesting note for these two rides is probably the ex-title for this post (back when it would have been a day after the ride): Under Pressure. Somewhere around 150 feet into the first, only, and super tiny climb, I realize that I am dying. I’ve ridden this loop a dozen times or so, but for some reason, I am sweating, huffing and puffing like never before! I’m beating myself up over it in my head (which *always* helps you climb better), berating myself for getting so out of shape, when some guy rides up behind me… well – passes me like I’m standing still really …and yells “Hey! You should really put some air in those tires!!”
…
…
DOH! I’ve got no frame pump on me and my riding buddies cleared this not-a-hill awhile ago. MAN, how quickly do we forget our training?! I manage to get up the hill and back down without incident (unless you count previously noted huffing and puffing) and borrow Mike’s pump. For the record, road bike tires were not meant to be ridden at thirty freaking pounds of pressure!! We managed to get them back up to a slightly more respectable 80 before finishing the last 5-ish miles. Of course, I was completely wiped by that point… but hey, another lesson (re)learned!

Beyond my failure to remember my bike pump, the rides were good. Great weather (gotta love NorCal for something!) and good friends. If I think of it, I’ll hunt down the Garmin data and throw it up here – I’m sure a couple of you would get a good laugh out of it!

So… what now? Well, that’s a good question. I’m seriously considering another TNT season this year (now that all the moving/job changing/wedding craziness is over), but I’m not sure which season will work for me. In the meantime, I’ve got a couple neighborhood rides planned with the other half (better put that full-carbon frame to work… on the flattest trail known to man), and I’m pretty sure that I’ll hit up Strawberry Fields for the metric century in May. Leave a comment if you have any other suggestions! I’m easing back into this game, but the more ideas you throw out, the more I’ll have to post about!

The excuses end soon though. Velotech repaired the bike and I picked it up last week. Theoretically she no longer squeaks (haven’t tested it), so at least that issue is off the table. Charles is mobile again, and I think I’ve resigned myself to living out of boxes until my next move. Or forever. Whatever. In any case, the first ride back is imminent…I just need to pick a date and recruit a buddy — Mike Z! I’m lookin at you! So, expect a real live ride update soon (although not immediate as I can only ride on weekends and I have weddings to attend the next two Saturdays running). There’ll be aching, whining, and possibly even some hot Garmin action. In the meantime, put some miles on in my honor or something! The weather has been too nice not to. I promise to be jealous!

Someone asked me that right after the ride, and I couldn’t really answer. With muscles aching, brain basically dead (shut up! that is so a departure from the norm!), I knew that I needed time to recover before making a decision. I’ve spent so much of the last year of my life in and out of bike training, I deserved a break! After due consideration, my best answer is…maybe. I loved the entire Team in Training experience; the practice rides, the hill repeats, the people and the support. I’ve made friends I’ll keep in touch with (hopefully) for a good long while. But unless the group takes me back as a mentor for a later season I think the fundraising will put me out of the running for at least a year. Between the new move and the wedding this year, I am tapped!

That said, I don’t think anyone will be getting me off a bike anytime soon. I took this past weekend off from cycling entirely, and felt like I was missing something all day long. In fact, I signed up today for the Strawberry Fields century in May, so I need to get some saddle time ASAP before my tail gets too far out of shape! I also seriously need to get my poor Trek baby some much needed shop lovin’. Then again, I did make it through the entire season crash-free! Charles has already been informed that my new frame should be on order just as soon as I pick it out! (Any suggestions? The Orbea Diva is currently calling my name…) All this to say, the Solvang Century isn’t the last you’ve heard outta me! I’ve got miles of new trail at the new house to explore, and plenty of coaches still to harass on buddy rides! More (hopefully) soon. Gotta get at least 10 boxes unpacked this week first…

The descent off of that last hill led Ron and I passed a couple crashed cyclists and into the final rest stop. Nothing like harsh visual cues to remind you to be careful. And this wasn’t even the area that the ride sheet warned about…and I quote “WE DON’T NEED YOUR BROKEN BONES”. How’s that for reassuring? Thankfully everyone we went by was in pretty good shape and waved off assistance (although some of that road rash looked painful!); but we sent a police car back up the hill when we pulled into the stop just to be sure. And by that I mean we nicely asked someone to go check on the people fallen over and they agreed. Not like we order cops around or anything (shockingly).

Now the fifth and final rest stop rides and interesting balance between refreshment and torture. Its located at this gorgeous winery, with lovely views of the countryside and (of course) provides much needed nourishment and the ever important potties. It also is approximately 50 yards from and directly pointed at the “final” climb of the ride known only as “THE WALL”. Some of you uber cyclists out there are probably reading this with some hit of skepticism. It seems that every area popular with road bikers has its own “the wall”; who’s to say how tough the one in Solvang actually is. Well, truth be told (with no Garmin data in hand), I don’t know. I can’t tell you the average grade, max grade, climb length or overall elevation change. I can tell you that after 95 miles in the saddle, sitting down, eating your banana and staring at that thing…”wall” seems like an understatement. Anticipation only makes it worse, ya know?

If Ron and I kept rest stop 4 short, the Firestone Winery was lightning speed. One wall and less than ten miles stood between us and glory. Or us and beer. Whichever. I scarfed my snacks, chugged my sports drink and (grudgingly) climbed back in the saddle. I might be close to the end, but my tail knew that it wasn’t getting a break yet! As far as I can tell, this particular hill was longer than the previous one but not quite as steep. It was definitely…wigglier (yes, that is a technical term) and had a couple decidedly unfriendly banks. Lucky for me, I had powerhouse-Ron at my side. He helped keep me going when I struggled, and we hit the top in pretty good time.

The view from the peak was phenomenal. If only my legs weren’t utter jello at this point, I’d be showing you a picture of it here. As it was, there was a 0% chance that I was going to unclip without falling – so I kept pedaling into the descent (and muttered internally about all the great missed pictures of the day). The downhill portion itself was actually much less rewarding than the last one. The pavement was truly wretched and my arm (and ears…oh my god the squeaking!) was giving me a good deal of complaints. I managed to keep hold of the handlebars the whole time, but I was really glad to see the stop sign at the bottom!

Of course, no cycling story would be complete without someone lying about climbs. Ron was pretty upfront that there was one “minor” hill after the big one we’d just done…but his idea of minor and mine are definitely not the same. Just after the aforementioned stop sign, we pulled up to Solvang’s answer to Mt. Eden. Much like our beloved hill repeats climb, this particular hill boasts fairly mild grades but a bunch of tiny switchbacks. We slowly weaved our way to the top – my legs were seriously dead at this point – and were rewarded with a downhill grade the rest of the way back to Solvang. As much as I’d like to whine about the unexpected or underrepresented final climb, 3+ full miles of downhill into the finish line was pretty frikkin’ sweet.

Me and my medal. I barely look winded!

I seriously couldn’t stop smiling riding into the finish line. There was a TNT contingent cheering for us as we rode across the line, complete with friends from last season who I hadn’t seen in months! A few more smiles and a couple hugs saw me to the actual finish line…well, the faux-finish line…still gotta get those last three miles in after the break!). I picked up my finishers packet (also known as a bunch of ride flyers – exactly what I wanted to think about after 7+ hours in the saddle) and headed to the Team in Training tent to checkout and get my super cool finishers medal. As super cool as medals can be, I guess. They aren’t exactly fashion friendly, but what in biking-land is? I hit the Solvang gear tent and purchased my very own event jacket; small jerseys were sold out. It is basically hideous (think bright red with green, yellow and purple accents) and vaguely overpriced, but its one of those thing you have have from your first century ride!

Ron and I at the finish line

Colin (my mentor) and I smiling pretty

Charles caught up with me shortly after checkout, food in hand. Score one point for him! The promised BBQ looked kinda shady, so he brought a bread/cheese/fruit plate instead. Mmmmm cheeeeeeese. Add in a tasty Danish pastry thing, and my recovery time was pretty short. Feeding time quickly gave way to “take lots of pictures to compensate for not taking them on the ride”. Of course these were of sweaty people in spandex cycling gear and not lovely rolling green hill, blue sky scenery…but whatever. Once the photos were done and the last of Team Wolverine had crossed (they all did make it in, just at varying points after Ron and I), Rich, Angie and I settled into back into the saddle for those last three miles home. Lucky for me, I avoided the beer – alcohol and a fierce wind combined with my exhaustion would likely have landed me as someone’s hood ornament!

Coach Don, me and Leigh Ann about 10 minutes before CollapseTime

I’m sure the Team in Training wrap up party was lovely, but I confess to not staying long enough to find out. I actually hit McDonald’s just after the ride (FOR SHAME!), so basically just picked at my dinner and ate the dessert. By the time the dancing started, my legs had one slow dance (aka turn and sway) in them before collapse. Charles and I hit the hotel room early and I feel asleep watching Troy on AMC (since when was this an American Movie Classic?!) by 9:30. All in all, pretty darn good day.

Motion Based ride data

I inhaled a few shot bloks, chugged some sport drink, and climbed back in the saddle. The weather had cleared up entirely, fog giving way to 70 something temperatures and not a cloud in the sky. I shed a couple layers of clothing (stuffed conveniently into back pockets. Why don’t normal clothes have pouches?), pedaled easy for 10 minutes or so, and was feeling good as new in no time. There really is something to this eating thing (apparently)!

The next 10-12 miles were straight into a headwind, but I felt great. Where I’d been lagging a bit before, I was now able to take my pulls on the paceline like it was nothing despite the nasty wind gusts. If anything, I was having to hold back to keep from taking off and gapping the line when it was my turn! The road condition worsened and my arm started to ache (let’s not even mention the annoying bike squeak), but overall the ride could not have been better.

Well.. all things in moderation or… all good things must come to an end. Pick your catchy saying. You knew this was coming, right? About 3 miles before rest stop three, my energy level was just gone again. I’m not sure if it was the wind, the sun, or some combination of the two (or possibly my overly enthusiastic attitude) but I went from feeling great to convinced I was going to faint in a matter of minutes. The thought of seeing Charles at the next stop really kept me going. How disappointed would he be if he waited for hours at that stop, only to find I’d been SAG’d out (or even just waylaid for awhile) just a few miles away? It simply wouldn’t do. So, I reigned in my pace, was thankful when other teammates did the same, and managed to hit the rest stop without collapsing.

Rest stop three was chaos. I managed to find a spot to lay my bike down (which was a challenge, despite the giant airport hotel parking lot) and stumbled exhaustedly to the food tents. There I was greeted with possibly the longest line I have ever seen (that wasn’t for a new gaming console in front of a Best Buy – people like their Wiis). Who’s bright idea was it to make a line anyway? The random elbowing and crowding had worked fine up to this point. As luck would have it, just as I thought I’d faint before actually getting any food, a girl carrying an enormous tray of PBJs and bananas walked by. Apparently the ride volunteers also realized that it was only a matter of time before a line that long led to riots! I snagged half a sandwich (which I never do), scarfed it down instantly, and stole two banana halves before heading back to the group. I was hungry!

Sometime during the frenzied inhalation of shot bloks, I realized that I hadn’t yet found Charles. I’d scoped out the obvious locations – potties, food line, TNT SAG crew – and he was nowhere to be seen. I wrestled my iPhone out of the Camelback only to discover that he had somehow lost his car keys in the hotel room, and would take a cab to meet me at the finish line. Bummer! I was so counting on seeing him to give me that additional motivation to finish out…guess that was going to have to come from me or something now. So sad! I continued stuffing my face for a full 10 minutes or so, took a few pictures, and even saved a cyclists life (by offering up an extra pouch of my borrowed Cytomax) before the team was ready to roll again. To be honest, I still wasn’t feeling that hot coming out of stop three. I no longer felt like I’d actually faint at any moment, but devouring that much food and chugging all that water in such a short time span left me nauseous at best. Lucky for me (although possibly unlucky for them), several teammates were also starting to show some wear around the edges – so we set a pretty tame pace for the next few miles.

Somewhere after that rest stop, Ron and I split off from the group. The hills weren’t treating me well and I didn’t want to hold up my team while I spun it out (and waited for the nausea to pass). Entertainingly enough, he and I rolled passed Devan and crew a couple miles down the road; they’d gotten a flat and were changing it out on the side of the road. That was the last time we’d spot Team Wolverine for the rest of the ride. A little more climbing and whatnot and we were the next break point. With only two people to keep track of, rest stop four was pretty short. I pulled off my shoes and massaged feeling back into my toes – I’m a horrible toe pointer – while the cutest kid I’ve ever seen offered to fill my water bottles. He could not have been more than ..seven… (I’m actually quite bad at ages), but he handled those Crystal Springs jug like a pro!

Ron and I picked up a nice tailwind coming through a 20ish mile flat span in Foxen Canyon which sped my recovery quickly. In no time at all we were flying passed cyclists, part of the time with Ron pushing the two of us faster than most singles could go! Ron and I hit Solvang’s answer to Altamont (you remember…short, steep and dirty) at the end of that nice flat stretch, and struggled up mightily. I would definitely classify that particular hill as a “gut popper”. We did make the top in the saddle and were rewarded with an absolutely fantastic descent. I stood a little to relieve the saddle-sore (hey man, we were over 70 miles in at this point!), and enjoyed the cool rush of wind. You seriously couldn’t find a cloud, and last temperature check was over 80 degrees! In March! (So much for that rumored hail, right?)

Team Wolverine, as we C’s were dubbed (no, I was not present at the naming and take no responsibility for our “winter animal” name choice. And don’t get me started on what on earth a winter animal is in the first place. Do they die out during the other seasons like flowers? Moving on…), were scheduled to roll out of the Marriott at 6:30am Saturday morning. I hopped out of bed around 5:30 and, after fighting with the evil hotel alarm clock for a full five minutes (I told you they couldn’t be trusted!), was ready to leave by 5:45. Well crap. I walked out into the hallway, thinking I’d go buy a bagel, realized I didn’t have shoes on nor did I know where the bagel place was, and quickly returned to the room. I did get a glimpse of my team motivational floormat though, so not a total wasted trip. Gotta love anything that can make you smile on no sleep at 5-something in the morning! After a quick room search revealed no mini-fridge or snacks, I settled for hastily made hotel coffee as my “breakfast of champions”.

I slurped down the vaguely horrid hotel brew and managed to sit still all the way to 6:10, at which point I had to go to the meeting spot. Yes, even though it was approximately 25 feet from my door. Better to fidget in the cold than in the room…I guess. Perhaps not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one who was early. I joined ranks with Angie, Rich and Ron and waved hello to our team manager and head coach. After forcing down a granola bar at Ron’s insistence (you cannot start this ride on an empty stomach. So many rules!), I lined up with the rest of the crew for a few team pictures. Or, as I like to call them, the “before” shots. Seems more ominous that way somehow. Two emergency trips to the room for ear-warmers and long gloves (it was cold!) later, I was ready to roll.

The morning fog seemed to thicken around us as we hit the road. By the time we’d made the turn onto the first long stretch of road, my glasses were completely and utterly covered in water drops. As we started our first descent, I had condenstation rolling down my helmet, down my glasses, onto my face. So crazy! Pair that with what can only be characterized as a “really rough” stretch of pavement – 10ish miles of it – and the first section of the ride should have been torture. But it was my first century, and even roads causing awful jarring sensations up my bad elbow couldn’t get my spirits down. As we climbed the next “little” hill, the sun started to break through the mist. Right as I started to get annoyed with the cold and wet weather, I was treated to a view from the side of a hill, over the fogline, just as the light came out. It was awesome. Of course, it was also a descent, and the best I could do for a picture was to grab one back at the general area from the next stop sign. Le sigh.

The route cruised along Highway 1 for a bit before sending us to our first stop at mile 23. Actually it was only mile 20 for us…TNT starts at the hotel rather than in Solvang and then does the entire route up to the finish line. Technically, that’s a full 100 miles, as the entire route is 103.4, but the TNT veterans claim that you haven’t really ridden the Solvang Century until you’ve hit the finish line, eaten dinner, had a couple beers, and then ridden the last 3.5 miles back to the hotel. Well, the beer part is probably unofficial. Gluttons for punishment is the only phrase that comes to mind on the whole “false finish” arrangement! Regardless, the stop almost seemed to come to early. Yeah, it was over a quarter of the way through the ride, but I wasn’t ready to break.

Lucky for me, the route planners and team coaches know more about century riding that I do. More rest stops is better than less. Or so I would learn. Coach Devan not only stopped the group at the stop, but made sure that we were all eating and drinking properly. I managed to choke down a couple banana segments (seriously, it was too early for eating!) and laid heavily into the Cytomax in my bottle cage. I was wearing the Camelback full of regular water for the ride, but gimp-arm still wasn’t strong enough to consistently, safely pull the bottle from the frame while moving. Gotta consciously load up on those electrolytes at the stops! I earned a few glares taking pictures of teammates (too early? Bah! They’ll thank me later!) before we headed back out on the road.

The miles between stop one and stop two all sort of blend together for me. My energy level was still pretty high, and I attacked the climbs on Highway 1 with a vengeance. The uphill struggle was rewarded with a phenomenal descent; super smooth pavement and a wide shoulder. Even throttling the brakes like I have been since the accident, I cracked my season speed record by far (up to 36.5, I think). I can see why the organizers put a “Watch Downhill Speed” note on the route sheet! I’m betting some of those experienced riders (or possibly a well ridden tandem) could blow by that 55mph posted limit without trying.

We turned off Hwy 1 towards the second rest stop, at which point I discovered…the squeak. Now, my bike, for all its problems, had never had a squeak before. Loud popping noises when tires blew? Yes. Grating noises on concrete when I’ve fallen? Sure. But horrid, high-pitched creaking like a demented cricket? That was new. All I can claim to remember of miles 32-37 is how desperately I wanted to reach the next stop and have my bike looked at by the mechanic. All I could remember for the rest of the day was how little worth waiting in line for that mechanic actually was. Twenty minutes and a lot of cyclist muscling later, the bike had been oiled up and declared “fit to ride”. Thirty seconds on the road after the stop and I swear the squeak was worse. So goes life. Notice there are no pictures from this leg of the journey…

I should have expected this. (Well, technically I did expect this…see first paragraph note.) The post is already almost too long to be bearable, so I’m making the first split here. More to come after the break!

Dinner-time entertainment, also known as speeches by a TNT staffer, was distracting at best, embarrasingly painful to watch at worst (seriously, the speaker seemed super-sweet…but could have run through those notes at least once before subjecting the public at large to them). The nervy cyclists thankfully bore it in good grace – not that I would have minded some pasta party food fight throw-down to liven things up – and after a few “GO TEAM”s were allowed to return to the main task at hand. Eating.

When the tummy rumblings finally died down, Coach Matt pulled us together for a few last words of wisdom. I’m sure he mentioned something other than “stay hydrated”, “remember to eat”, and “be safe”…but I can’t swear to that with any degree of certainty. (My mind was doing important things like…taking pictures! And…mentally reviewing checklists!) The large team broke into ride groups for some more last minute advice – be safe? have fun? – and firmed up a meeting time later in the night for some mysterious, but important activity.

I managed to secure several crack-baggies of Cytomax (thanks Andy and Michelle!) before our ride group pow-wow in Room “Some Vineyards Name”. That’s right, Coach Devan was all fancy and secured his very own suite! The mystery task was soon revealed, as Devan, Leigh Ann and Andy tried to work out the intricacies of iron-on patches between them. Apparently there aren’t really many non X-men related “wolverines” that you could fit on a helmet!

A “few” minutes and at least one failed attempt later, our jerseys were branded and we almost could have been mistaken for a real live cycle team. I think the freakishly bright TNT green and purple jerseys definitely mark us as something less than pro. Just a touch, mind you!

Charles and I met up with a few other teammates for rounds of pool, beer, or in our case…a card game called Guillotine. Hey, whatever it takes to relax, right? I refrained from adding the beer carbs knowing that I was going to need every edge I could get come Saturday, and did my best to burn off some nerves focusing on cards. Getting thoroughly trounced three games in a row was enough to convince me that I should probably just pack and go to bed. We left a few more hardcore teammates to their billiards, and I spent the next hour or so packing my gear ever so carefully for the morning’s ride. Hit the sack around ten and the proceeded to wake up every 30 minutes and watch the clock…right up until 5:30 when my alarm was set to go off. No…I wasn’t nervous…but who trusts hotel alarm clocks, right?

Somewhere around 15 minutes past roll time, I’d tracked down Kate for pasta party tickets, heard at least six people’s “drive to Solvang” stories, and verified that the Garmin would work in Solvang…just not under the hotel’s awnings. Ten more minutes went by as Coach Matt gave us an overview of the importance of the Shakedown ride – namely where to spot the ostriches – and we were finally ready to hit the road. At this point, you may be wondering what the heck a Shakedown Ride is. Totally natural, as I haven’t actually mentioned shaking or riding up to this point. Basically, its a quick jaunt to town to confirm nothing on your bike was horribly damaged in transit – gears all shift, tires aren’t flat, brakes are intact, etc – with the added bonus in Solvang of ostrich farm viewing. (No, of all the pictures I took this weekend, none of them were of kick-ass giant birds. I suck.)

The ride was even shorter than I imagined when someone first explained it to me. We rolled passed the exciting part of the ride (birds) almost instantly, and were in the heart of Solvang in mere minutes. To be fair, the heart of Solvang is rather cute. If you’ve never been there, its this little Danish-esque town somewhere northwest of Santa Barbara. Supposedly there are lots of cute shops around, but we didn’t really get time to look around. Maybe after the ride was over…too much to think about beforehand!

Everyone grouped up at the site of the century finish line to socialize for a bit (check out my mentor and I ready to rock this ride in the pic on the right). The energy was palpable. People were excited and somewhat nervous. At least I was. Sometimes I project. Or so I’m told. All of the sudden all that training for months and months (almost years in my case!) started to feel real…like I’d actually given up all those Saturday mornings for something. Not to mention all the fundraising! Hard to believe in less than 24 hours it would all be over.

Angie and I hit the local bike shop on the way back. I was bound and determined not to beg for Cytomax unless I had to, and she had a hole in the sidewall of her tire. Not a good way to start out a 100 mile ride! She was able to get the tire replaced, but with all the other cyclists in town (estimates put total riders over 5,000 people) I was S.O.L. on sports drink packets. Looks like begging was in the cards for me. So lame! The two of us headed back to the hotel together, pumped and mostly prepped for the big event.

Clothes

• Two pair of bike shorts. The long ones, as it might be cold – Check
• TNT jersey. Crap, missed sendoff ride, so don’t have event jersey. Will take training jersey and hope to find Kate before actual ride – Check
• Two undershirts, as will be cold in mornings at least – Check
• Two (matching) pair of socks. Rummage through many laundry baskets and bags. – Check
• Leg warmers. Well, they have a hole in them…but… – Check
• Newly washed foot covers – Check
• Shoes. Found in Charles’ truck – Check
• Jacket. Remembered Friday morning as was getting into car when I spotted it sticking out of laundry basket – Check
• Ear warmers – Check
• Long and short fingered gloves (dunno how cold fingers will be!) – Check
• Something to wear when not on bike. Right…good plan that – Check
• Assorted toiletries thrown into plastic baggie just before leaving – Check Hope Charles grabbed the toothpaste.

Equipment

• Helmet – Check
• Garmin – Check
• All important Garmin charger – Check!
• Tiny camera for photo-logging first century ride – Check
• Charger for afore-mentioned camera – Borrowed and Check
• Water bottles. Emergency tearing through bags found one…so – half-check!
• Sunglasses – Check
• Contacts. No freakin’ clue where those are. Decided would ride blind; my vision’s not that bad, I think – Big Red X
• Dirty Evil Camelback – unfortunate check
• BIKE. The last thing to make it into the truck…but a definite necessity – Check!
• Floor pump – Check

Food

• GU. Managed to find one mint-chocolate and one espresso love. Hope to borrow/buy more on site – Half check
• Shot Bloks. Three bags split between bento box and evil camelback. – Check
• Clifbar. Can’t find them. Assume were thrown out in move (as movers apparently catch on fire upon touching foodstuffs) – Big ol’ X
• Cytomax. Well crap. Also apparently thrown out. Could live without Clifbar, but will need to find/borrow drink or will never finish ride. Stress about this for a full 24 hours – No check. Possibly negative sign instead.
• Water. Not really food, but closely related. Will have to hit store somewhere in Solvang. Assuming psuedo-Danish drink bottled water – No check

Two suitcases, two laptop bags, one gym bag, one purse and one bike later (plus that darn camelback), the truck was packed. With emergency dog sitter acquired (big almost-oops there!) and her tests passed, we headed out around 9:30 Friday morning for two nights in Solvang. Hopefully all boxes in the house will be unpacked before the next attempt at one of these things (assuming there is a next time, of course!).

So, I dug through boxes (and trash bags…we are classy packers) to locate my bike gear, lamented the fact that the bike hadn’t cleaned herself from the mud and whatnot acquired over the last 3 weeks of wet rides, suited up and headed out. Two right turns, a quick street crossing, and I was on the trail. Pretty, no?

And then came the wind. Headwind, crosswind, tailwind…this place had it all. I intentionally started into the headwind, knowing that I’d be hating life trying to fight through it on the way home. Head down, teeth gritted, I rolled out and could not for the life of me get my speed up above that posted 15mph. Heck, I was lucky to hit 12!! Ten minutes in I was pretty sure that this ride was a lost cause. Two miles in (notice how those aren’t the same thing?) I felt like I’d been climbing for a good hour. I’ve never been in winds like this before! At mile three I decided to turn around and try the trail the other direction from the house. Maybe it curved in such a way that I’d get cross or tail winds coming home, because I wasn’t going another 10 miles straight into that gale-force at freakin’ 8mph.

Knowing that it was a gamble, but not wanting to have donned spandex for a 3 mile ride, I turned around and tried the other direction. And all was good for about …ten minutes. I sped past a few pedestrians, enjoyed the change of scenery (see the spiffy crane that stood still for several pictures?), and generally had a good ride. Right up until the point that the trail bent right again. I honestly have no clue how it is possible for wind to be in my face one way…and then again when I turn the exact opposite way… (any meteorologist-types care to explain?) but it was.

I kept going for another two miles before calling it quits in disgust. I was five miles in and more tired than after any hill repeats I’d ever done. And its not like this road could be any more flat. I could not possibly have gotten this out of shape with one week off; it just wasn’t a good ride day. The trail was nice…flat, almost entirely well paved, not crowded, with new scenery…but even the sunny weather couldn’t make up for that wind. I hit the driveway with just over 7 miles under my belt – the longest miles I’ve ever ridden.

Motion Based ride data

Why does this matter? Shouldn’t you go into a ride not planning to drop out early? Well, yes…in theory. You see, I’m a firm believer in being setting realistic expectations. Realistically, I can not complete a 100 mile ride in March if I don’t do any rides in February. So I need to go to the buddy ride. But just as realistically, my arm gives me nothing but trouble, aches like the devil like clockwork at mile 25 and I never expect with any certainty that I’ll be able to finish a ride. The best I can do is try my darndest to finish once I get there, and take the offered help if and when I must.

Buddy rides don’t really give that flexibility. You get out there and just ride; self-sufficient style. (I know all you hardcore solo-cyclists are rolling your eyes at this right now. Sorry, I’m spoiled!) Which is why I was pretty excited to see that Coach Don’s route sheet included a 45 mile Bail-out plan option. Hey, if it all went south I could head for home on my own and still get a decent length ride in. Plus, I brought the cell phone to call Charles to save me…just in case.

Unlike many other coach stories, the rumor that Coach Don’s buddy ride was a “nice flat ride” held true. There were two baby climbs in the first half of the ride, one of which was actually just the bridge. (Yes, I know that’s not really a hill. I did say baby!) I really enjoyed chatting with some new faces and was actually feeling pretty strong all the way over the bridge and through the ranch-park-thing on the other side. I did sing London Bridge as my cadence song while crossing the bay, but fortunately (for me) it was only in my head. Pretty sure more than my arm would be aching if my “buddies” had caught wind of that one.

Now Coach Don’s Buddy Ride is informally known as “The Lunch Stop Ride”. What no one tells you, however, is that the lunch break stop point is after the bail-out point!! I’m riding along, starting to tire by mile 25ish, thinking only of the yummy Panera bread cheddar-broccoli soup that lies ahead, totally not realizing that I’ve now committed myself to the whole 66 miles. Crap! I’m am confident that Coach Don did that intentionally. That’s right Don…I’m lookin’ at you, making suspicious face. By the time we got to lunch, there wasn’t much for it but to eat and keep going. So I did. And the soup was good.

As I mentioned, the ride was true to promise and stayed pretty tame. There were some nasty “false-flat” miles through the ‘burbs that were pretty killer (damn soul-sucking non-climbs!!), but the rest was most enjoyable. Santa Cruz definitely spoiled me though; strip malls and planned housing really doesn’t compare with giant rocks and crashing waves. Then again, I did not miss the within-arms-reach screaming-by traffic. Tradeoffs. Sigh. I started fading by mile 40, and more than once wished I’d skipped the soup and headed for home early, but stuck it out with teammates by my side. Many thanks have to be sent out to Rich and Ange for keeping my mind off the miles which kept my feet turning.

Charles and I moved the week after this ride, so the Garmin data will be incoming as soon as I find the box that has my connector cord. I swore that I pulled it out separate and put it in the laptop bag, but I can’t locate that cord to save my life. Grrrrrrrr….

Motion Based ride data