Brian’s TNT 2006 Page

Once again, I’ve neglected my blogging duties for far too long. This time, I didn’t even really keep notes about the rides. Now it’s only 7 hours before I need to wake up to go to the airport for my trip to Tahoe, but I really wanted to get at least a little written down before the grand finale.

First of all, I mentioned a new bike computer that Iris got me for my birthday, but I don’t think I mentioned how cool it is. It’s got a heart rate monitor, GPS, and barometric altimeter built in, so ever since my birthday, I’ve got full GPS maps with all kinds of data saved. To see all the rides I’ve done, visit http://gunnbr.motionbased.com/. Be sure to check out the export to Google Earth from there. You can get some pretty good views of the routes and the climbing we’ve done.
So I’ll first get caught up on what little I remember of my rides:

April 29th, 2006

We rode from Kit Carson Park in Escondido to Fallbrook. This was my first ride after returning from Hawaii. Right now, I don’t remember much about this ride. I do remember that David told us to stand on the climb up Champagne Blvd, but only one of us (the other Brian) actually did so. From the bike computer data, I can see we rode 77 miles that day. That’s all I remember for now.

May 6th, 2006

This week we rode mostly the same route as the previous week, but added a different section that took us on a really big climb. This ended up being another really crazy ride. Several members of the ACE group went on one of their insane rides (they do TONS of climbing!), but the ones who stayed behind rode with my ride group. We ended up with lots of people with different levels of ability and kept having sub-groups that split up and gathered together again at the turns. At one point, this ended up being a problem as the group in front (which I was in) knew a different route than the group behind us was planning to do. At one of the turns, we waited for a long time until I finally went back to see where the group behind us was at. After backtracking for about a mile and a half, I still didn’t see the other group, so I stopped and called David, but just got his voicemail and left a message. Then I rode back to the group I was with, but they were no longer where I had left them (this was really my fault because I didn’t tell them what I was doing). I also had no idea where I was or what the route was, but I did see another rider and decided to follow him. Right when I was close to catching this other rider, David called back and told me the way to go. At this point, I was way out in the the middle of nowhere and completely unfamiliar with the area. As I traveled along the route David told me, I noticed I had no cell phone service and the battery on my GPS was getting low. The road was a lot longer than I had expected and I started getting worried that I was completely lost would run out of water. Finally I made it to an area that matched what I was looking for and then called David to let me know where I was. I had ended up behind them as they went on the big climb and David came back to escort me up to the group. He met me right at the bottom of Couser Canyon–a 6 mile climb. Along this climb, I really started to feel bad. I remember thinking that riding just wasn’t for me and I really didn’t want to be doing it. David was feeling even worse, especially since he had to ride it twice, but we made it to the top, the raced down to meet part of our group at the bottom. Chad and one of the slower ACE guys had continued on, knowing that we’d catch up with them. So we continued on and finally stopped at a gas station at the bottom of Champagne because everyone was out of water. I really didn’t think I would make it up Champagne, but I ate a bunch of beef jerky and a snickers bar. David told us to take it slow up the hill but half way up, I was feeling really good and sped up to race Kim up the top. I wasn’t able to beat her, but I did finish right after her. Then we had a nice ride back to Kit Carson Park with a few more wrong turns and a few more flats we had to fix, but we all made it back safely after a 79 mile ride.

May 13th

After thinking about my last ride, I realized that my big problem was that I was distracted by everything else going on and wasn’t eating or drinking enough. So, the night before this ride, I made a conscious effort to eat a ton of Chinese food. This time we were meeting in Poway, so I got to take surface streets to get to the meeting area. This took me right past a bagel shop I knew of, so I stopped to get a full on bagel sandwich on my way. Then I paid attention to the clock and made sure to eat something every 20 minutes, so I felt a lot better this ride. After around 70 miles, we rode up the inside of Torrey Pines which is shorter but a lot steeper than the outside route we had done before. Then we finished by going up Pomerado which was a long climb as well (check out the elevation graph on the MotionBased site!). I was fairly exhausted by the end, but made it though the 86 mile ride without too many problems.

May 20th

This week we did almost exactly the same route as last week. I did everything the same, including stopping at the bagel shop and watching the clock to remind me to eat. This ride ended up being 87 miles and I felt really good afterwards.

May 27th

This was our final training ride. Chad and Janel were part of a wedding in Boston and Kim was off doing something as well, so it was just David, Brian, and I riding together. We started again in Poway and were planning to just do a short (50 mile) ride. One of David’s fundraisers is making a DVD with pictures from our training and the final event, so we decided to ride up ahead of everyone, then stop and take their pictures as they rode by. After the last group passed, we’d ride up ahead of everyone again and stop to take pictures. Even with just the 3 of us, this ended up being a fun ride. It was nice to take it easy and it was great stop and relax, then chase down the other groups again. We ended up at Torrey Pines again and this time we rode up the inside twice. Brian and I also went down the inside which was pretty scary cause there’s a lot of turns and it’s easy to gain too much speed and lose control. We did manage to make it back to Poway safely at a really early 1:00 and then had our final prep. I was really sad leaving the park after our meeting was over. I knew that was our last training ride together and I’ve really gotten close to the people I’ve been riding with.

June 1st

Two days ago, all of our bike got loaded onto a truck to be taken to Tahoe. Although I haven’t mentioned it, I’ve been riding 2 - 3 times per week other than the Saturday rides, but this week, I wasn’t able to ride at all. Tomorrow at 7:50 am, we board a plane to leave for the ride. All day I’ve been really excited, a little nervous and still a little sad that it’s all coming to an end. I probably won’t sleep much tonight, but I should at least try (if I go to be now, I can still get in 6 hours before I need to get up). All I can say right now is that even if the final ride is horrible, it doesn’t matter. The journey has been incredible! I’ve learned a lot about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’ve made new friends and discovered that I really like to ride.

That’s all for now. I’ll post a final ride report and pictures next week!

I admit it–I’m a really lame blogger.  I think my main problem is that I’m a perfectionist.  I want each entry to be entertaining for everyone to read without going into too much detail to bore people.  So, I end up starting entries each week and writing at least an outline of the major events I want to blog about, figuring I can finish it and make it interesting later.  That technique isn’t so much working.  It probably takes me a couple hours to finish a single entry that way and I’ve been riding so much that I don’t have evenings and weekends free to sit and blog.

But we did just take a vacation to Hawaii so I had some time off from everything.  I brought my laptop with and was able to at least able to flesh out the rides I had done so far.  I’m still not comfortable with what I’ve written.  Some of the entries I think are too long and boring.  Others I think are too short.  But, I can’t keep putting this off forever, so I’m going to post all the entries I have so far.  As I mentioned, these were all started at the times that they happened, but the blogging software will put today’s date on all of them.  I’ll put the date that the ride occured on each of them so you the reader don’t get confused.  I’m also going to post this message at the beginning and end of this block of posts so people who start from the oldest or most recent will get to read this.

April 24, 2006

Okay, I’ve been on vacation in Hawaii since the 17^th so I’ve missed spin class and our Saturday training ride. I was worried that all this time off was going to leave me out of shape so I was really excited when I found a flyer for Go Cycling Maui. They rent out road bikes and take people out on rides with a full support vehicle following behind with food, water, and anything else we could want. One of their rides is a 36 mile ride with a 10,000 foot climb up Mt. Haleakela which is believed to be the longest continuous climb in the U.S. I wanted to go on that ride just for bragging rights, but they didn’t have any groups going there so instead I went on a ride along the road to Hana.

This trip was 46 miles with around 3,900 feet of climbing. The first half was a good pace. I was having a good time out riding with people again. Thanks to my TNT training, I felt really well prepared to be riding with this group. They used the same calls and hand signals while riding that I was used to. I spent the first half of the ride riding along chatting with everyone and enjoying the views. We kept a pretty good pace which was apparently because we were riding mostly downhill.

At the turnaround we stopped for some banana bread, we switched ride leaders for the trip back. Our new ride leader has done several Ironman length triathlons and had ridden pretty slowly on the ride out so she was ready to challenge us on the way back. Four of us started riding back together and we quickly spread out trying to keep up with our leader as we just kept climbing and climbing. After only a couple miles, it started raining on us. I’m really glad I had gotten experience in the rain just the week before. Throughout this, I stayed with the leader for a few miles but eventually dropped back and one of the other guys passed me. There were points where I really wanted to pull over and catch my breath, but somehow I managed to keep going. I kept my heart rate at 92 – 96% for a good half hour and amazed myself my catching back up with the guy in front of me right as we finished the main climb. Now we were in some rolling hills and I was able to get a second wind while recovering in the downhills. At some point I even managed to catch up with the leader. Now I just worked hard to stay on her wheel and draft behind her. She was riding hard and kept checking to see if I was still there. After a several miles of this, she gave up trying to lose me and we rode alongside each other and talked. Three miles from the finish was a turn where we all grouped back up and rode in together. There I was able to talk to the other guys. The one in front of me had run out of energy. Again I had my TNT training to thank for my good preparation—I had a large breakfast with lots of carbs and that really must have made the difference. I was really amazed at how much energy I had at the end of the ride. We finished the ride with 3 hours 5 minutes of moving time at 14.6 miles per hour. That makes this ride very similar to the Great Western Loop ride I went on, but this was a little longer and I rode it a little faster.

Probably partly because I was riding a different bike and partly because we rode really hard after a week off, my legs really hurt that afternoon and next day. Fortunately being on vacation in Hawaii, I was able to sit around the pool and in the hottub and relief.

April 15, 2006

Today wasn’t the longest ride I’ve been on, but it was certainly the craziest ride so far. I rode 50 miles (and walked a quarter mile) and climbed 2,000 feet (2,900 according to my GPS, but I’m not sure I believe it). But the real story is in the details:

The ride started (as all of them do now), the night before. For many reasons, I was really stressed out:

• On Monday, we were leaving for a Hawaiian vacation so I spent the day at work trying to get everything finished. I think a lot of that carried over into that evening. I kept feeling like I had to get everything ready for our trip that night.
• We had gone out for a 20 mile group ride on Thursday instead of doing spin class and I discovered that I hadn’t installed my new bike computer correctly. I had Iris take it in to the bike shop to get that fixed and also get a shorter stem put on since I’ve felt too stretched out while riding. When I showed up to pick up the bike at 6:00, they still hadn’t even started on it. I then really started to worry I was going to miss the ride the next day. Since I was going to be out of town for 10 days, this ride was really important to me. It would be my last chance at training for a while.
• I need to do lots of preparation for the rides. There are several things I absolutely must remember to take or I won’t be able to ride. For instance, I need my bike shoes and helmet or there’s no way I can ride. Without my sports drinks, I’d be able to ride, but I’d at the very least be out of my groove and would need to figure out other things to eat to avoid bonking. My new bike computer detaches, so I need to remember to bring that. I would be able to ride without it, but I’d feel like I was riding blind without knowing my speed, cadence, and heart rate.
• Finally, I worried about being able to keep up with everyone else. Judging by our race up Torrey last week, I should have no problems keeping up with everyone. Now that I know I’m a strong rider, I feel like I need to keep proving myself. I’m worried my competitive side is starting to cause problems. It’s kinda wierd, since the competition with the other riders is one of the things I really like about riding with the group. I think I need to find a balance of using the competition as motivation without letting it become all important.

In the end, I got my bike back on time and got everything prepared the night before and remembered to bring everything I needed. And on this ride, I certainly didn’t need to worry about competition from anyone else. Chad and Janel had their poker party fund raiser the night before and hadn’t gotten to bed until 1:30 - 2:00, so they were really tired and dragging. Our ride mentor David learned of a death in the family the night before and was up all night because of that, so he was not at his best either.

As we stood around listening to the morning’s presentation on pacing ourselves, the weather didn’t seem great. It was windy and misty, but fortunately not too cold. Everyone kept hoping the forecast was correct in predicting the bad weather would quickly move out without dropping any rain. But as soon as we got started, the mist got heavier and heavier until it started outright raining on us. After about 5 miles of riding, we made a pitstop at Starbucks where one of the coaches told us the ride has been officially canceled. What this really means is that Team In Training’s insurance won’t cover us and our SAG stop got called off, but most of us (including my entire ride group) decided to continue riding since we were already out here, dressed, and wet.

Shortly afterwards, the rain stopped and then David got our first flat tire of the day. We quickly switched tubes and continued riding through Oceanside (right past the house where parts of Top Gun were filmed) and over to the Oceanside bike path. Once there, we got a really good ride in–we were working hard and riding together at around 25 mph. At the end of the path, or at least where the other ride groups were stopped to regroup, we had ridden 15 miles and David, Chad, Janel, and Kim all turned around to go back. Brian and I continued on with the other groups. This started out being very chaotic. We rode a couple miles and then tried to find a bathroom. We ended up with people on 3 different corners of an intersection and no one knew which way to go. Soon a mentor appeared and got us all grouped together and led us to a rec center that they were told had bathrooms. It did, but they were in the gym where they didn’t want us walking with our bike shoes, so we had to take them off. The bathrooms were at least clean though.

From here on out, the ride was just really strange. The rain kept coming and going. Our bike ride groups kept getting split up and regrouped with different people. I was riding slower than I was used to, but before David left, he told me to stay in my big chainring (harder gears), so I did that. I also did some ILT (individual leg training where I unclip one foot and peddle only with the other). We made our own SAG stop at the location where it had originally been scheduled at a trailer park with a supply store. We waited around long enough for everyone to catch up and we were able to socialize for a while before continuing.

Right after the SAG was our big climb everyone was worried about–up Champagne Road just east of I-15. Looking back at the data from my bike computer, it looks like this was only about a 500 foot climb, but it did go on for a long time. I had been riding slowly with two other people at the beginning of the hill, but when I saw other people coming, I felt the need to prove myself up the hill. Climbs are the one place where we’re allowed to ride at our own speed, so I took off. I managed to climb the whole way in my big chainring at ~12 mph, up to 92% max heart rate and was the first one to the top. A minute later Brian finished who I found out later had been encouraged by JT to chase me up. As we waited for everyone else, Brian left by himself to get to an early work meeting, so I was the last C group rider remaining. The rest of us regrouped and started out again, only to nearly get into a crash with a car. The driver had started a right turn in front of us and then stopped when he saw us which was right in our path. We all managed to swerve on one side or the other and avoided injury.

Now on the way back, the rain cleared out, but the flats moved in. First Don got a flat on his front tire followed by another in his back tire half a mile later. Most of our group went one without us while 3 of us stayed back to help Don change his tire. A little while later, we climbed a hill and met up with another group of 4 riders pulled off to the side. After a minute of waiting there, mentor Troy came around the corner with Brooklin who had a flag tire, her second of the day. We changed her tube and continued, then a few miles later she got another. As we approached the end of our ride, I was near the back talking to Brooklin when her bike started to make noises. At first I thought her brakes were rubbing, but unfortunately it was her tire yet again. By the time we realized what it was, everyone else had ridden past us and both of us had used up our spare tubes, so the two of us walked the last quarter mile.

So this was the craziest ride I’ve been on, but it was a lot of fun too. I got some good fast riding in before the rest of the C group riders left, I got to ride in the rain, and I got to ride with a lot of people that I normally don’t see very often. I think my favorite part of this TNT experience has been meeting and making friends with lots of other people. That’s followed a close second by getting to compete with some of those same people and overall, I’m having an amazing time. I’m really glad I signed up with TNT—I’m getting everything I wanted and more out of it.

April 8th, 2006

This week we did the same ride again, only this time things went much more smoothly. It started the night before when I carb loaded by eating a ton of Chinese food with lots of rice and chow mein noodles. Then the ride went without a hitch—we had no unexpected stops or accidents. The best part is this ride was on my birthday and Iris completely surprised me by meeting us at the SAG stop with balloons, a big Happy Birthday poster and some birthday cupcakes. I probably should have been expecting this since Iris always does something for my birthday, but I had absolutely no idea she was going to do anything. It was a really great surprise and I got to introduce her around to my friends I’ve been riding with.

After the SAG, we again did racing around stud loop but I played it a little smarter this time. I drafted behind Janel the entire time and cut out at the very end, although I didn’t realize at the time it was the very end. The loop seemed much shorter this time. This time Chad and Brian drafted behind Kim who hadn’t ridden with us last week and didn’t know what was going to happen. Much later in the ride, we did another race along a city block. This time we raced in our smallest gear. Just like in spin class I was able to get my cadence up to 187 rpm. That’s the first time I was able to do that off a trainer. I think I came in third in the race in part because I panicked when I looked down and saw my cadence.

At the end of our ride, we did one final race. We did a time trial up Torrey Pines. Took my 7:34 to climb up Torrey in a time trial. Janel beat me with 7:01. We were the first group to finish. After the rides now most people hang around and chat. I’ve really enjoyed that. This week my legs have taken a lot longer to recover.

April 1st, 2006

In the past two weeks, we’ve started to do a lot of riding! We’re now up to 60 or more miles per Saturday!

Our route has been from UCSD up through Rancho Santa Fe up to Carlsbad, then back along the coast. The first time we did this route, we had a few problems. 14 miles into the ride while we were going through Sorrento Valley, a stoplight turned yellow as we approached. Janel, who was leading the paceline, hit her brakes, causing Chad to slam into her. (Fortunately they’re married so there were no hard feelings between them.) No one was injured too badly, but Chad’s front wheel got knocked way out of true. Fortunately we were pretty close to Performance bike shop, so we took off his front brake and started towards the bike shop. As soon as we started to roll, we discovered that Janel’s rear derailleur also got bent into her spokes. We bent that back out and started again. Once we showed up at the bike shop, we were told the mechanic had the day off and although our ride mentor is a mechanic, they wouldn’t let him use any of the tools. Just then the mechanic walked in to do some work on his own bikes. We managed to talk him into helping us out and after a few minutes we were on our way again, though we were now completely cooled down. After 15 miles or so, we came to the SAG stop, grabbed some food quickly and continued on to a place known as “stud loop”. This is a really nice area with rolling hills and lots of fruit trees. There’s no much traffic on the roads, so it’s also used as a place to race, so of course we raced! As we have come to expect, Janel led as everyone chased her. I wore myself out really pumping down a hill with Chad and Brian drafting behind me. As soon we started the next climb, they cut out in front and left me behind. We regrouped at the end of the loop where my heartrate quickly returned to normal and we continued on. Once we got up to Carlsbad, all of us started running out of energy. Brian started getting some cramps so he fell back. Of course, I pretended like I wasn’t hurting, but I was really feeling like I would be able to do the remaining climbs myself either. We made another SAG stop at a gas station and get water and beef jerky (with lots of salt to help with the cramps). Then we got to the coast and started our way back. Half way there, our mentor David got a flat tire which delayed us for another 10 minutes, long enough for coach Phyllis (who started the ride by herself late) to catch up. We came to Torrey Pines at mile 60 and followed Phyllis’ advice to take it easy up the first half and go faster if we felt good on the second half. I was surprised to find that I was able to do the hill without many problems even this late in the ride. Brian took off first while I rode up the first half with Janel and Chad followed behind us. At what I thought was pretty close to the top, I told Janel we should catch Brian, so we took off. Then when we got around the corner, I realized we were still pretty far from the top. I passed Brian, but then burned myself up so Chad and Janel finished before me. I made it up in 9 minutes 13 seconds. Because of all of our unexpected delays, we ended up being the last ride group to arrive back at the finish which was a little embarrasing since we’re supposed to be the fast group.

I admit it–I’m a really lame blogger.  I think my main problem is that I’m a perfectionist.  I want each entry to be entertaining for everyone to read without going into too much detail to bore people.  So, I end up starting entries each week and writing at least an outline of the major events I want to blog about, figuring I can finish it and make it interesting later.  That technique isn’t so much working.  It probably takes me a couple hours to finish a single entry that way and I’ve been riding so much that I don’t have evenings and weekends free to sit and blog.

But we did just take a vacation to Hawaii so I had some time off from everything.  I brought my laptop with and was able to at least able to flesh out the rides I had done so far.  I’m still not comfortable with what I’ve written.  Some of the entries I think are too long and boring.  Others I think are too short.  But, I can’t keep putting this off forever, so I’m going to post all the entries I have so far.  As I mentioned, these were all started at the times that they happened, but the blogging software will put today’s date on all of them.  I’ll put the date that the ride occured on each of them so you the reader don’t get confused.  I’m also going to post this message at the beginning and end of this block of posts so people who start from the oldest or most recent will get to read this.

On Saturday we did the ride that I’ve been the most worried about–we attempted to climb Torrey Pines. For those who don’t know, it’s a 400 foot climb in a nice location right next to the ocean. Whenever I’ve driven up it and seen the people on bikes or jogging, I’ve thought they were insane. It looks like a never ending climb. The biggest climb I’ve done around here is the 500 foot Pomerado road and I still haven’t made it up that without stopping about halfway up, so I figured I would have problems with Torrey Pines.

But apparently something magical happens when riding with a group. Riding up Torrey Pines was easy. I climbed at around 8 mph and my heartrate never got above 163. I have no idea how I was able to do this. This was so much different than any other ride I’ve gone on by myself. Usually my heartrate shoots way up until I feel like I can no longer breath and have to stop. Somehow on this day, I was able to breeze up the hill. After we climbed it, we went back down, rode up to Solana Beach, then came back and climbed Torrey again. This time I took it faster (around 11.5 mph) and still had no problems. My heartrate was a little higher, peaking at 171, but it still wasn’t as difficult as anything I’d done on my own. I’m still in awe that I was able to do this.

But all of that doesn’t even compare to what we did on Sunday. Our group C mentor David invited us all to come out and ride the Great Western Loop with him. This is a 42 mile ride in the east county mountains with ~4,800 feet of climbing. David assured us that we were all plenty prepared for the ride and that we’d take it easy because it was the day after a big ride. Once again, I was absolutely stunned to find that I could do this ride. I again have no idea how I did this.  Half way up the first really big hill I was just spinning away and realized that I was going to be able to make it up without stopping.  I do think that part of the difference is riding with the group.  Since David told us we were going to take it easy, I tried not to over do it like I probably do when I’m out on my own.  (I also had to keep my competitive drive turned off so I didn’t try to keep up with Janel and Nick who were always the first two at each checkpoint, although once I finished the ride I realized I could have pushed harder.)  It was also nice to have other people to talk to so I didn’t focus too much on worrying that I couldn’t do it.  I did end up riding quite a bit on my own though, including the steepest part of the ride where I really felt like I wasn’t going to make it the whole way.  Somehow I pushed through anyway.

So I learned a lot on this ride about my limits and how they aren’t as low as I thought they were.  Next time I do this ride, I’ll push harder.  I spent some time talking with David and Jen about their max heartrates and how they ride with their heartrate a lot higher than I do.  Once I hit around 182 bpm, I start to worry I’m stressing myself too much, but at one point I was riding next to Jen and she mentioned she was holding 182 bpm.  I need to drop my mental limits and learn from experience what I can do.  I’m sure I’ve got a huge reserve that I haven’t been tapping into because I’ve been scared to do so.

Oh yeah–and the best part of the Great Western Loop was the downhills!  I hit a new speed record for myself–47.8 mph!  There were lots of long downhills.  Unlike most of the downhills stretches I’ve been on, many of these had lots of twists and turns like normal mountain driving.  Flying down those hills was a blast!!  I really got to feel the effects of drafting while doing these.  At one point, I was tucked in behind Jen and she was peddling to keep up her speed because of the wind resistance.  Hiding out behind her, I wasn’t peddling at all but instead had to keep tapping the brakes to keep from running into her.  She said she was doing the same down another hill where she was behind me.

Anyway, I also got 42 miles logged in spin class, so my total miles for the past 7 days is a little over 120!  I’m still really enjoying the rides and every one is more and more fun!

On Sunday the team met for a ride through Carlsbad.  Since was an unofficial ride, not everyone showed up so the B3 and C groups (the fastest two groups) rode together.  As I mentioned before, there are some nice hills along our Carlsbad route.  Last time we rode here, once we started going up the biggest hill, one of the other guys I was riding with took off up the hill so I followed him and got my best workout.  This Sunday one of the girls in our group decided to sprint up the hill, so I followed her up and one other guy chased us down.  Once we got to the top, we waited for the rest of the group to catch up when the mentor for the C group rode up and told me I was now with the C group and the 4 of us split off from everyone else to ride on our own.  I was already wondering if I belonged with the C group, so I was pretty excited that I got to prove myself and get recruited in with them.

Once we went out on our own, I had the best ride I’ve yet had.  In all my other rides, when I’ve been in the front of the paceline, especially going down hill, I ride easy because I don’t want to go too fast for the other people.  In this ride, I once again ended up in the front of the paceline on our first long downhill.  By this point I knew I was riding with a faster group so I sped up down the hill.  Even so, the girl riding with us blew by me.  Before the other two guys could pass me up, I again took off after her.  There was no way I was going to let her beat me again, so I went all out and chased her down.  I hit my highest heartrate during the ride while on this downhill stretch, but it was worth it since I did get to the bottom first.   I hit a little over 44 mph going down.  After that, all 4 of us had a lot of fun racing each other on the big hills.  On some of the flat areas, we doubled up to ride side by side and got to chat.  Overall, it was an absolutely great ride.  We ended with 42.7 miles at an average speed of 16 mph.

Because of this ride, I realized I am really motivated by competition.  I worked really hard on this ride and had a lot of fun.  Amazingly enough, I didn’t really have any muscle pain either.  I was kind of worn out for a few hours, but after I took a half hour nap and then had a big plate of pasta I felt pretty good.

…I’d never get to ride. Okay–I know that San Diego is having a pretty dry winter and we really need the rain, but it’s getting pretty annoying that it keeps hitting on Saturdays. 3 of our first 5 rides have been canceled or postponed due to rain.

Two weeks ago we did get in our first ride off of Fiesta Island. We were out riding real roads in Carlsbad starting at the Poinsettia Train Station. The weather was great–sunny and warming by the time we started so I didn’t even need to wear my riding jacket. We had our first climbs which caused a lot of problems. People weren’t used to shifting so much and we had about 10 slipped chains during the ride. (I admit I was one of them.) We also ended up with 2 flat tires that had to be changed, so we had a lot of downtime. During the climbs we break out of the paceline and ride at our own speed, so I did get a good workout on one of the longer hills. I rode a total of 31.7 miles at an average speed of 13.0 mph. The embarrasing part of this story is that when I was getting ready for bed, I took off my shirt and Iris gasped when she saw the horrible sunburn on my arms. I had put on my riding jacket before the ride but since it warmed up during the 45 minute presentation before we left, I took off the jacket on the way out of the parking lot and didn’t bother to put on any sunscreen. I guess I’m not so surburn proof as I thought I was.

The week after that ride, we started spin classes twice per week with Tuesdays being a hard workout and Thursdays being a little easier. The Tuesday class was mostly the same, just longer time periods for most of the exercises. The one new one we added was interval training. In this one, we break up into three groups. Then in our lowest gear one group at a time peddles as fast as they can for 30 seconds. After the time is up, the next group starts and the group that was peddling peddles easy. I hit a cadence of 140 during this session and it really got my heart rate high! One of the other girls got up to 165! In the Thursday spin class, I finally figured out which gears to use for the 3-3-3 exercise so I was completely out of breath by the end and really pushing to keep going. Between the two spin classes, I logged 40.5 miles.

Then on Saturday we got the big storm of the season, so our second ride around Carlsbad was canceled. I was still pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to ride with the team, but at least I get to hang out with everyone at spin class.

Monday I finally got out and did a ride on my own again. I hadn’t done that in 3 or 4 weeks so I wanted to find out how much the spin classes helped. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I did my standard route to the top of Scripps Ranch which is only a 8.96 mile loop which I did at 15.5 mph. I was still a lot more out of breath than I had hoped, but we haven’t really gotten any training in climbs yet. I think I just have poor climbing technique, but we’ll see.

The next day, I had another spin class. This one was by far the hardest spin class I’ve done. Now that I know what level of difficulty to start at, I can really wear myself out. My legs actually hurt some the next day from this class. Even on Thursday I was pretty worn out and thought about skipping spin class, but I ended up going and had a really good time. Between the two of these, I logged another 41.7 miles.

Then today we were supposed to meet at Mission Bay and ride up Torrey Pines. I was really looking forward to this because when I drive up Torrey Pines, it looks really harsh to try to ride, but everyone keeps telling me it’s not as bad as it looks. They say it’s only 500 feet of climbing over 1.25 miles, which means it’s not as steep as some of the hills I’ve been climbing on my own. But for the second week in a row, a storm rolled through on Saturday, canceling the ride. AAAAHHHHH!!! Now we’re planning to meet in Carlsbad for a ride tomorrow. Hopefully that one will be clear. I definitely need more road time.

Today was also our “recomitment day”, which is when we have to either put up a credit card to meet the minimum required donation or drop out. I heard that quite a few people dropped out. I know at least one of my friends from spin class did and at least one of the guys in my ride group. I won’t really know how many people are left until next Saturday. I was personally only $5 short of the minimum requirement, so I had no problem giving them my credit card. (Thank you once again to everyone who donated!!)