Lost in Livermore

Tina and I met up with the Velo Girls again today for the 'final' big Cindy training ride. We were scheduled for 53 miles which would include part of the Cindy course only in reverse.

We arrived to sunny skies and rapidly warming air. We slathered our faces and legs with sunscreen and soon took off rolling. The only bump in the first half of the ride was missing the entrance to the Iron Horse trail and tacking on about a mile detour. Not bad.

We were pretty much broken into the 'fast' group and the 'not so fast' group, with T and I bringing up the tail of the fast group. With about 20 miles to go, T dropped her chain and while we stopped to fix it the rest of the group was off like rockets. Luckily we had the route sheet, so we could find our way back. Up hills, down hills, all was well until we got back to the Livermore area and the sheet instructed us to take a "L" on Stanley. Uh, yeah, you *can't* take a left on Stanley. What the sheet failed to mention was that you first have to go R and make a bit of a loop and *then* go left. I think I was carb depleted because I had the stupid idea to try an alternate way around. Yeah, that led to about an extra 7 miles and terminated in some dead end roads. Sorry T! :-( We eventually figured out where we were *supposed* to have turned and back tracked and finally made it to the end. One of the ride leaders came over and after I told her about our trials and tribulations, she commented "Well, at least you had each other. Glad you made it back." Uhh, okaaay.

I kinda thought that the point of riding with a group was so that there would be folks around who knew where they were going and would stick with those of us who don't. So far we've been out with the Velo Girls twice and both times we've gotten lost and been left for dead. Okay, maybe not left for dead, but certainly left. Not so nice.

All in all were out in the sun on the bike for about 5 hours and instead of covering 53 miles we covered 63. I guess we're 'ready' for the Cindy after all. My tush sure was glad to climb down off that bike tho. Oh, and you may have noticed that I said we put sunscreen on our legs and faces. Yeah, we were wearing jackets so we forgot our arms, even after T said "we should put some on our arms", but the jacket sleeves came off fairly early in the day. So, now T and I are sporting some crispy arms. Some painfully crispy arms. :-(

I got home and was reminded that I was supposed to run with Jeff for his Pig training run. He was supposed to do 4 miles and so I changed clothes and we headed out. It was pretty warm, too warm for Bam in fact. She kept falling behind and was panting like a....well....like a dog. At just under 3.5 miles I threw in the towel and walked the rest of the way with her while Jeff finished up running. He walked back to meet us and we proceeded to shower up and pig out. Gotta replace those calories, ya know. :-)