Thursday I was supposed to spin for 14 miles and do it in an hour, according to the training plan posted for our upcoming 65 mile ride. I got home from work with a roaring headache so I opted out. Instead I got my butt up Friday morning and jumped right on the bike. Well, not right away. First I swapped out Jeff's old saddle for the new one I got him for Christmas. It's got a 'bring it back if you don't love it' guarantee from the bike shop where I got Ruby. Jeff's bike is on the trainer and it's so much easier to just climb aboard his bike than to swap out for Ruby. So after swapping saddles, I climbed aboard and pumped out 14 miles. Whew. I thought about doing a run as well, but let myself slack on that one.
Saturday, I actually did NOTHING. Well, no exercise anyway. I got my hair cut, washed the car, did laundry, walked the pup, grocery shopped and did general errands. That was exhausting in and of itself.
Sunday was the 25 mile Break Away from Cancer Ride. It's a charity ride sponsored by Amgen to raise money for the Wellness community which supports cancer patients. I feel a *bit* bad because I didn't do any fund raising. I just donated the minimum that I needed to secure my spot. Ah well, at least I did that much, right?
The ride started out in Palo Alto, just off of FootHILL, on a road called HILLview, which is really close to Sand HILL. See a theme emerging here? Now, you may recall that I opted for the compact gearing on Ruby, thinking I wouldn't be doing too much 'climbing'. So, I was getting a little concerned about the talk of hills. Then we heard one guy say they're more 'rolling' hills, kind of like an overpass. Okay, I can probably handle that.
We met up with Brian and Phil, 2 Fat Kids relay team mates, and headed to the start line. We somehow ended up in the last wave, but that was okay. It's a ride, not a race. Soon enough we were off at a nice pace, hitting a few gentle ups and downs, running some yellow lights so we didn't have to stop, and losing Phil in the process. We were tooling along quite nicely for about 7 miles and then we hit an uphill that seemed to keep going and going. It was long, but not steep, so my gears and I did okay. At the aid stop, around the half way point, Phil caught back up and we took off again. Hit a few more uphills that weren't too bad, and really got flying on the downhills, up to about 32 mph. Awesome fun, that was. Oh, except for Phil. He likes to use the downhill as a reward for making it up the hill and give his legs a break. Me, I like to see just how fast I can get going. :-) Okay, so I guess there may be a *bit* of a speed demon in me after all. We had no mechanical issues until the second to last hill when Brian popped the chain off his bike. A quick fix and a minute or two later we were off for the last 3 miles of our route. Within the last mile there was a nasty little hill. Maybe it wasn't that nasty, but my legs were tired and I was wishing I had opted for the triple gearing instead of compact! I didn't think I was going to make it up the hill, but finally we crested the top and pedaled down to the finish to grab some post race goodies.
Phil, Brian, T, and yours truly
Home again, home again, where I had promised Jeff I'd run with him. He's training to do a leg of the relay team that my cousin is putting together for the Flying Pig Marathon. Luckily it's a beginners program and we *only* had to do 3 miles. And luckily he's just starting out and keeping a nice even pace that doesn't hurt his back too much, so I didn't have to push myself. We took Bam, and when she lagged behind, or I need to pick *something* up that she left behind, Jeff would keep going and I would pick up the pace to catch up. It was actually kinda fun. Not quite a brick workout, but my legs were wiped just the same.
So, time for bed so I can get up and start the training madness all over again this week. I didn't know that I was *this* wicked. ;-)
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