Greetings,
I promised that I would start up the ol' blog again once we started a new round of training. Mostly I need an outlet to zing the coaches since I don't ride fast enough to keep up with them to zing them in person. This blog is my only hope for retaliation. I am also curious as to how I will feel and what I will observe as we prepare together for another 100 mile bicycle ride. Since the Solvang Century (March, 2012) I have done the Amtrak Century and the Solvang Prelude (a mere metric century) so have continued riding and loving it! The past couple of months have been super challenging (and rewarding) at work, so I am extremely grateful to have something else on which to focus.
The goal at hand is to conquer the San Diego Century on June 1, 2013. It seems this will be somewhat steeper than Solvang, but I admit to being a bit ignorant of what is in store for us. There are rumors of a section of the ride called “Three Witches”. This doesn't sound very promising or fun to me but time will tell. Coach Kristen has invited people to train/ride with her who have some experience on a bike and aren’t total newbies. It’s fun to think that I am no longer a newbie! Many of the folks riding are Team in Training alums, some are Kristen’s customers, and all of us are her friends. There are approximately 75 people who are all worshipers of our beloved Kristen. It is clear that we will all follow her blindly to the ends of the earth and I have a feeling that is where she is going to take us over the next few months.
We are a part of “Team Two Wheels” and will be wearing Two Wheels One Planet jerseys during the ride. We won’t be fundraising this time around, but I have decided I am going to donate some money to a worthy cause so that I am held accountable and feel better about frittering away my Saturday mornings. Kristen will be creating routes and will give us lots of useful info as we train, but she won’t be babysitting us. This time around we will print out our own route slips that she sends us via e-mail and we will figure out our own SAG stops as our mileage gets higher. I rather like the idea of us all being self-sufficient. Survival of the fittest and the most organized.
So it begins! We all
met at Heritage Park this morning at 7:30am. Lots of reunions all over the place—it is
sweet to see the bonds of cycling. I am delighted
to be training with some of the folks who I rode with in Solvang and am also
excited to meet several people who have done other Team in Training events
before I came onto the scene. I can tell already that this is going to be a nice group of folks. The only sad thing of the day was
that the fearless Fay wasn’t with us since she is not feeling very well and has the stupid cold/flu/virus that we have all had over the past many weeks. Fay and I are planning to ride the Senorita Century
tomorrow (66 miles) near San Diego and she opted to conserve her energy and rest instead of joining us this
morning. She was missed!
After some introductory
comments by Kristen and a couple of laughs, we were rolling by 8am sharp. The route today was very nice and not too steep. The weather was beyond glorious; topping out
in the 80’s when we finished. I rode with some old friends and made a few
new ones along the way. Today’s route had us winding our way from Irvine
to Mission Viejo and back again. 35.56 miles; 1765 feet of climbing;
2:27. At one point on the route slip there was an option for an 8 mile “challenge” (the dreaded green lines). It took us along Lake Forest Drive and it was really
pretty and a new route to me. All in all
this was a beautiful ride. I don’t even
have anything to complain about.
Hmmm. I bet that won’t last…
Cheers!
