Recovery Ride

We had a larger group than usual today because the TNT triathlon team showed up to do a recovery ride as well. In talking with the coach of the Tri team, I realized how big of a committment they have to make to train. Sounds like several times a week since they have to swim, run, and cycle! Amazing! Maybe some day! :o)

The ride was uneventful though, just our usual loop and a fun, fast train ride down Alpine!

Last Long Training Ride for the Season - 83 Miles

Only 2 weeks to go! The schedule slotted today as our last long ride before the event (Tour de Palm Springs) on February 13, 2010. We met in Cupertino at Monta Vista Park (normal meeting place for Mt. Eden hill climbs) and were ride ready by 6:45am! Driving to the park at around 6am was neat as it was a full moon...check out the view that I had driving northbound on 280. Umm, don't ask me how I got that picture! :)

As usual, I am one of the first ones there and I get myself and my bike ready to go. Coach Patrick arrives and has route sheets in hand. I grab one and notice that we are doing a hill climb right away over Mt. Eden! Great, I thought we were done with hill climbs! Oh well. The rest of the route sheet looked pretty straight forward as we were doing a tour of the bay area peninsula. Cool, we should have pretty good weather (yeah right)!

Off we go at around 7:15 am (don't you hate it when they say "ride ready" by 6:45am but some people don't arrive until that time). Don't get me started! Anyway, we are ready to go and Coach Patrick comes up to me and says that he really wants me to focus on finishing strong today. We did 80 miles a couple of weeks prior to today so he wanted us to remember how we road that day and think of what we could do to pace ourselves better so that we finish a lot stronger today! I definitely kept that in mind today!

First up, Mt. Eden. I was soooo tempted to attack that hill. I mean it's been almost a month since we've done hill climbs and I know I am a much stronger rider today than I was just a few weeks ago. But of course, this is only 3 miles into an 83 mile ride so I had to pace myself so that it wouldn't hurt later. I hooked up with my favorite climbing buddy Henry and we went up together at a pretty easy pace, no standing, and we actually did a lot of talking while going up. Ok, I guess I am getting better as it actually seemed "easier" (notice I never said easy) to get up that hill. We road some familiar roads around Los Gatos/Saratoga area before our first stop at mile 21 back at Monta Vista Park. It's nice having the first stop be where our cars are parked since we were able to shed some layers as the weather is now looking very nice. Oh I forgot, about 1 mile before the 1st rest stop, Henry got the first flat of the day (rear wheel too)! But man, he knows what he's doing as he swapped that tube fast! And, we had our SAG captain, Ruth come up right on time with the floor pump! We are so spoiled with our ride support team!

After refueling and a potty break, we headed back out and started towards Palo Alto. Again, very familiar roads as we hit Foothill to Alpine to Portola to Mountain Home. This stretch caused one of our other teammates to flat as well! Man, not a good sign, 2 flats in less than 40 miles. Oh well, nothing we could do but help her change it. Here comes SAG captain Ruth again to the rescue with her pump!! :) This route, especially the long (not steep, but gradual ascent) up Alpine reminded me of our Sorting ride (only 2nd ride of the season) way back in November and how this little incline just about had me gassed! I wanted to quit. But today, it was quite nice going up that little road. It definitely boosted my confidence! Ok, we got to rest stop #2 at about mile 42 and tried to make it quick so that we could make up some time. We went to the bathrooms, refueled and off we went.

Next part of the ride would take us further north on the peninsula to Canada, Skyline, Crystal Springs. Canada was where we did our Pacelining Clinic at the beginning of the year, so we did a lot of short pulls to allow everyone on our 7 person team take the lead. I know I am biased and all, but man, we look good! :) We work so well together as a team. Our wheels are pretty close together and we communicate really well. That makes us so efficient and saves a lot of energy! Bummer! "FLAT"!!! We had to yell that out again as another teammate, Eddie, got the third flat of the day! His took a little longer to change since for some reason it appeared he had two bad tubes. I did get a couple of photos of my teammates. And of course, there's Ruth, our SAG Captain, helping out!

Ok, we were in the Burlingame/San Mateo/Hillsborough area. There are some nice houses in these neck of the woods! We found ourselves oohing and aaahing over many of the beautiful homes. As we started heading back south on the peninsula, we came to a trail called Ralston Bike Trail that lead us back over 280...and I mean literally over 280! We went over one of those walking bridges to the other side back to Canada. Oh, I forgot to mention...it wouldn't be a true Winter Cycling Team ride if it didn't rain! Yup, it started coming down on us. Albeit, nothing too bad and not too long. But still, I know we need the rain and all, but this was getting old.

Final rest stop was back in Los Altos at mile 68. Ok, all I kept thinking was how I felt last week on the Buddy ride and that was only 66 miles total. I am at mile 68 and I feel great! Got some more fuel and then 5 of the 7 of us went on. One of our other teammates was "bonking". He was not feeling well so one of our mentors, Arielle, told us to go ahead and she would bring our other teammate in at a slower pace. Ok, that only left 5 of us to work together to bring home the last 16 miles.

We headed down Woodside to Whiskey Hill to Sand Hill to Santa Cruz to Junipero Serra to Foothill and back to Monta Vista Park. The best part was I felt great. We got there and saw the fastest group packing up. They were gassed! They said they kept too fast of a pace and felt drained. So, I, I mean "we" kept a good enough pace where we felt really good. I even suggested that since it was only another 3 miles away, why don't we go for another hill climb on Mt. Eden? My teammates wanted to kill me!! LOL!!! :)

That's it...after this ride, the coaches said that we are ready to take on 100 miles at Palm Springs! We have one more training ride next Saturday but it's only 30 miles and a little potluck lunch celebration afterwards. Check me out saying "only" 30 miles! Who would have ever thought that!

Last Spin Class! What a Bummer!!!!

Tonight was it. The last spin class of this season! I can't believe that we did it! Coach Peggy brought cookies for the occasion, but she didn't let up tonight! She kept her promise of making the classes tough and that she lives up to her name, "SPINZILLA"!

Seriously, if it weren't for Coach Peggy and her Spin classes, I would definitely be in a lot of trouble! Since she knew all the routes that we were doing (she was a TNT Coach for many years), she knew how to prepare us for each ride! And that she did!

At the beginning of the class I was curious where she normally taught Spin classes and she said that she didn't anymore. She had in fact retired from teaching Spin classes. But it was Head Coach Patrick who convinced her to come back. What's even more amazing is that not only did Coach Peggy donate her valuable time each week, she donated lots and lots of money towards The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Each week, she would keep the classes fun by asking participants to guess artists and titles of songs that she played during our classes. She would throw around $10 - $25 here and there to those who guessed correctly. But that's nothing...as I've told you in the past, she has also challenged each person to come to each and everyone of her classes...if you did, $100 towards your fundraising! There were 4 of us who got the $100 each! Now, couple that with her time to get us in shape, and I'll tell you, that is one generous and extraordinary lady!

I will definitely miss going to Spin classes on Thursday evenings! I will definitely keep riding the Spin bike in my own gym, but I know it won't be the same without Coach Peggy leading us! Cheers to you Coach Peggy, and yes, I will definitely be riding for your cat Tripod (Coach Peggy's 3 legged cat who has Leukemia)!

Finally...A Ride With No Rain!!!

Another recovery ride scheduled to start at 9am. I got to the meeting place in Los Altos at 8am because I knew that I had to at least clean and lube my chain from yesterday's wet ride. I got it all clean, checked and pumped air in my tires, got all my gear on and was ready to go! Wait a minute, no one is here! Don't tell me everyone flaked today. I know a lot of people don't want to ride in the rain! Well, today was a day of riding with no rain! A little cold, but at least we stayed dry....all 3 of us!

Coach Don showed up at around 8:45am. Then, another participant, Bobby, showed up about 10 minutes later. They got their gear on, set up their bikes and we were off by around 9:15. If you know me, I hate starting out late! If you're not early, you're late is my motto! Oh well, it was just a recovery ride anyway. The nice thing about only being 3 of us on the ride is that we were able to get going at a pretty good pace and not have to wait for too many people to catch up.

In fact, we finished the ride before 11am. Most times we don't finish before 11:30 and that's even when we start on time at 9am. Time to eat and time to go wash the bike! Can't wait until next weekend! It will be our last long ride before the actual event! 80 miles next week and it's titled Tour de Peninsula!

Ride Around the Bottom of the Bay - A Day of Flats!

The ride for today was titled, "66 Miles Around the Bottom of the Bay". Today was considered a "buddy ride" which means that it's not an official TNT ride, which means it's unsupported (ie: food on our own and no ride support). It also meant that you ride at your own pace and you ride with whomever you want to.

I don't know why, but when I went to sleep last night, I wasn't as nervous as I was the prior week. In fact, I caught myself saying, "hmmm...I don't need to get up too early tomorrow morning, it's only a 66 mile ride tomorrow"! DOH!! Would I regret thinking that way later!

We started in Los Altos and our route was to take us about 15 miles to the Dumbarton bridge. The past week was filled with rainy days so we were lucky that it wasn't raining...yet! We started the ride and wouldn't you know it that it started raining on mile 2! We were getting soaked! Our first stop was a restroom stop at mile 14 right before we were to go over the Dumbarton bridge. Luckily it stopped raining and we didn't see anymore rain for the day. In fact, we got some sun for part of our ride.

Going over the bridge was a trip! I've lived in the bay area all my life and I think I've been over the Dumbarton bridge once in my life and of course it was in a car. I never knew there was a bike lane on the bridge. This is where one of our teammates got his first of 3 flats. I didn't know he got a flat until I was already off the bridge on the eastern side. We had to ride in single file and it was hard to hear anything since all the cars were passing by. That teammate decided to call it a day at around mile 23 when he got his 3rd flat! It wasn't until later that I found out that another teammate had brought a friend to ride with us and that friend actually got 2 flats before getting to the bridge so she called it a day as well.

One of my teammates, Annette and I were ahead of the pack when we made it over the bridge. Since our other teammate who got the flat was with one of the coaches, Annette and I decided to keep go ahead since it was getting cold and were still wet from the rain. We got to Patterson Ranch in Fremont. We had no clue where we should be going next so we rode around a bit and tried to wait for the rest of the team. We definitely thought we went the wrong way so we decided to go back towards the road we came in on. Once we saw other teammates, one of the mentors asked us if we did the loop already? We were like, "what loop." She said, follow me so we did.

I guess we were going in the right direction and just needed to do the "loop". The loop was around a large hill in the park that we would have definitely thought we were lost if we kept going. What we didn't realize was that it was a big loop that would get us back on the same road that we came in on. Oh well, whats a few extra miles! The only bad thing is that we lost a lot of time waiting so we were in for a looooong day!

Ok, after regrouping with the rest of the team, we headed out with 4 of us in a small group. The other three included my one teammate, Annette, and then two TNT Mentors, Arielle and Butch. What all three of these guys had in common is that they are all fast! I had my work cut out for me! In fact, by mile 40, I was done! My legs just couldn't go anymore! I was so tired. I slowed it down and let the three of them go ahead of me. I tried to keep a constant cadence and not push too hard. I came to a corner where I saw the other three waiting for me. I told them that they didn't have to wait but they were very cool and said, "Hey, we are a team!" I think what really got me was when Annette said, "C'mon Harold, what are you a B#$%$? Suck it up!" Wow, not what I would expect from a lady! :o) Nevertheless, that got me motivated to step it up and dig deep in the fuel tank! I took in a GU pack and went from "sad to glad"!!!

At around mile 47 (we were in Milpitas by this time) , Arielle (one of our mentors) got a flat! Whew, I don't mind the rest even though I didn't tell them that. :o) She changed it pretty fast though so off we went again. At about mile 50, Arielle got another flat. Ok, now I didn't wish for this rest! She didn't have another tube but she still had her last one and a patch kit. But to save time, I gave her my spare tube. Ok, changed it out again and then this time, we decided to try and use her CO2 cartridge to fill the tire (don't ever use one of these). Well, it didn't help that none of us have ever used one of these? I mean what the worse that could happen? The cartridge filled her tire in about 3 seconds! It was instant! So Arielle puts the tire on and instantly the tire went flat again!! She had to take the tire off the bike again. Something is wrong! We tried pumping air into the tire with a regular pump but it wasn't holding air. Could I have given her a bad tube? Was it the CO2 cartridge?

Since we were down to one last tube between all four of us, Mentor Butch decided to take the wheel off the tire and inspect the wheel and tire carefully. Both Butch and I were also supposed to be somewhere by 3pm and we knew that wasn't going to happen so we had to make phone calls to our wives. While I had the phone out, I took a picture of my 3 teammates on the side of the road. Say hi to Annette, Butch and Arielle (standing). How many TNT people does it take to change a tube? LOL!! All we could do was laugh...what a long day!

The last 16 or so miles was tough. It was getting cold, lots of traffic, and the headwind was picking up. Mentor Butch led us back to Los Altos and we drafted behind him the rest of the way! What a lifesaver! What was supposed to be a 66 mile ride ended up being a 70 mile ride for Annette and I. Total ride time was only 4 hours 41 minutes, but total time from start to finish was 7 hours exactly! A lot of time definitely wasted, but still a great workout and I got to see the bottom of the bay!

One thing is for sure. I have met a lot of people who have ridden for a long time and never ride in the rain. I have been riding my bike for only about 3 months and I can say that I have a lot of experience riding in the rain! That also means that I have a lot of cleaning to do on the bike!

Spin Class - Anaerobic Workout!

We usually warm up for few minutes, but coach Peggy said to go ahead and spin and warm up our legs for about 10 minutes. Ok, why is she being so easy on us? Something is up! Yup, she said that tonight's workout would be an anaerobic one! What does that mean? It means, "without oxygen"! Enough said! I am still trying to catch my breath! Last spin class next week! Yippeee!!!!!

Sunday Recovery Ride

Ok, this was a game time decision as to whether (or weather) or not I was going to the recovery ride in Los Altos. When I woke up it was not raining so I went on-line and checked weather.com (yeah I know, how naive of me to believe weather.com). Anyway, forecast was for rain to start at around 1pm. We should be able to get our 22 mile recovery ride in and be done by around 11am. So off I went!

I got to Los Altos and only Coach Don was there. Ok, did everyone else bail? Here comes a few more people. But that's it, there were only 5 of us total and I was the only participant to show up. Oh well, it was a bit cool, but at least it was dry...for now!

We go north on Foothill and then make a left onto Page Mill Road, then an immediate slight right onto Old Page Mill to try and avoid some traffic. Back onto Page Mill, under hwy 280, and then a right onto Arastradero to the Arastradero Preserve. Here, three of us, Mentor Butch, Mentor Geoff, and I waited for the other two to arrive. Coach Don was taking it easy this morning as he had a long day yesterday in Santa Cruz. Coach Don's group was out on a very long ride yesterday (approximately 10 hours). After they arrived and after a quick water break we headed back via Alpine Road. We usually smoke down this fun hill. But today, wouldn't you know it, it started to pour on us! Yup, another ride where we got soaked! So much for the rain staying away until 1pm!

We made it back a little after 11:15am and tried to dry off as best as we could. It would have been easier to just stay in bed this morning, but then again, what fun would that have been! :) Rain, rain, go away!!!!!

Long, Cold, Wet, and Dark Saturday Morning Ride

We were to be ride ready at 6:45 am starting at the Twelve Bridges National Park in Santa Cruz. I like to be at least 30 - 60 minutes early to ensure that I have plenty of time to get my bike prepped and ready to go, get the necessary gear on and just socialize with some of the other participants and team members. But that would mean that I would need to be on the road by 5:30 am. I decided to set two alarm clocks for 4:45 am. What a night though! It was so frustrating. I tried to get to bed by 9 pm so that I could be well rested for the scheduled 79.6 mile ride. But all I did was stay up until about 2 am! I could not sleep. I felt a bit nervous, probably a bit anxious too! I finally fell asleep and then I remember the alarm going off, but then next thing I knew I looked up and it was 5:20 am! AHHHHH!! I hate that feeling!

Ok, out the door by 5:45 am so only about 15 minutes behind "my" schedule. I ate a light breakfast in the car on the way to Santa Cruz. Arrived at around 6:30 am and immediately got the bike ready to roll. The difficult part was putting air in my tires since it was still so dark! Hope I don't get a flat!!

I'm usually one of the first ones to arrive at a ride, but this time most of the participants were there before me. Oh well, I was still ready to go by 6:45, just not on the schedule that I had for myself! I tried to forget about how much sleep I had last night and just focused on keeping up with my team on the ride.

The route sheet showed that we would be going up north on hwy 1, making a few right turns to visit some "contours" as the coaches described them. Ok, whatever, these coaches love to lie! Just call it a hill already!! Nothing like Old La Honda, but we did have some wind so some of the hills were still tough for me.

This was our longest ride yet and I could tell that everyone was feeling it. I heard a lot of people complaining about their bottoms hurting! Mine was too, but really not that bad, I just stood up and tried to stretch out as much as possible. I did feel my right calf cramp up at about mile 50, but nothing too bad where i was not able to stretch it while on the bike and prevent it from locking up too bad. We got to La Honda Road (hwy 84) at mile 41 and then we headed back south on hwy 1. Not a straight shot though. Of course, the coaches wanted us to take a scenic route to do more sightseeing...like more "contours"! We took a left at Pescadero Creek and then a right to Bean Hollow before heading back onto hwy 1.

We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful area! While riding back on hwy 1, you really get to see how beautiful the ocean/beach is! The waves were really crashing. I wanted to ask the group to stop so that we could take a picture, but I figure the rest of my teammates may want to kill me because they just wanted to get back home!! :) But I did get a few photos at our last rest stop at mile 54. It was at the Lighthouse in Pescadero. The views are spectacular! No, that's not a dunce cap on my head, that's the lighthouse!

Ok, after the last rest stop, we had a little under 30 miles to go...home stretch. Yeah, as we would expect that last part of the ride was hard. We had a lot of head wind and the rolling hills, I mean "contours", on hwy 1 kept it challenging. Then, at about mile 67, the rain started coming down! We were getting soaked. Not to mention that it was difficult to see and the cars going by on hwy 1 were moving! But as weird as it sounds, it was pretty cool riding in the rain, watching the waves crash on the rocks. Mother nature is pretty amazing and to be outside watching while riding and getting a great workout was a fantastic feeling! We are truly lucky to live where we do!

As we got back to Twelve Bridges, my team mates and I each high fived each other for finishing another long and challenging ride! It is such a great feeling to finish a ride like that, but even more so is the feeling of accomplishing something like that with a team (I know it sounds corny). We saw our Team Manager, Christina, who had some leftover food from the rest stops so we hung out with her for a while! :) Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches never tasted so good!

Total miles - 79.58; total time start to finish - 7 hours 9 minutes; total actual ride time - 5 hours 55 minutes; total climbing - 4,294 feet; total calories burned - 5,022; top speed - 38.8 mph, only 1 flat tire the whole ride and was changed by the rider in about 11 minutes.

I will definitely need a recovery ride tomorrow...I just hope I could get up. I had two dinners tonight. One at around 4pm and another at 10pm. I think I ate a whole cow this evening! (my apologies to those who don't eat meat)! :)

Spin Class - Getting Tougher!

Coach Peggy warned us last week that she was going to turn up the intensity of our workouts since the event, February 13, is coming up in just a few more weeks. Well, she kept her word. After about a 5 minute warm up, she decided to tell us what we were in for tonight. All climbing! Variations of seated and standing climbs was theme for this evening!

1 minute sitting, 1 minute standing; 2 minutes sitting, 2 minutes standing; 3 minutes sitting, 3 minutes standing...and so on up to 6 minutes! The legs were burning, but Coach Peggy said it is what we needed to prepare us for our next long ride this weekend...a little over 79 miles starting in Santa Cruz on Saturday. Oh boy!!

Recovery Ride...I Need Lots of Recovery

Coach Don and Coach George hosted this morning's Recovery Ride, which started off of Foothill in Los Altos. It was scheduled to be a short 22 mile (funny how I now consider 22 miles on a bike "short"), flat, easy going ride. The purpose was to just get our legs spinning. I did ask at the beginning of the ride, what's the point of a "recovery ride". I mean wouldn't I be better off recovering in bed? :) Well, everyone laughed (even though I was serious) and said that if we didn't do some sort of easy spinning, our legs would be even more sore tomorrow. Ok, if you say so!

Well, they lied! It was not all flat. Although there were only little hills, my legs were burning up. And, even though it was supposed to be slow, we did get up to about 22 - 24 mph on the flat stuff. Well, we didn't need to, but since a couple of riders in the front were going that pace, I decided to try and keep up with them. Thanks Arielle and Michelle!

Anyway, I'm glad that I did it. I don't know if I won't be sore tomorrow, but I'll take their word for it that I might have been worse off if I didn't go for the ride today!

Next up, of course Spin Class on Thursday, but then Saturday brings us a 79 mile ride starting in Santa Cruz at 6:45 am! WOW, can't wait!

Another Cold Morning...Another Looooong Ride!

Ok, after last Sunday's 58 mile ride, I thought this morning's 66 mile ride would just be a little bit tougher. WRONG! It was A LOT tougher! Just like last week, it was cold. We were to be ride ready at 7:30am at Foothill College. Everyone had their winter gear on and ready to go.

We started the morning hearing from an honoree who just joined the cycling team named Lois Rosenblum. Lois was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2002. Since then, she has had several treatments of Rituxan, a monoclonal antibody. With this treatment came chemotherapy. Today Lois describes her condition as "stable". She looks great and had nothing but words of encouragement as well as appreciation for all of us riders. In her own words Lois said, "Please know that those of us who are hoping for new treatments and cures are so appreciative of your efforts in raising the money needed for such research. We thank you wholeheartedly – GO TEAM!"

Hearing from beautiful people such as Lois continues to validate that what I am doing is one of the best ways I can do something for someone else! No matter how tough the training is!

Ok, on with the ride...Coach Patrick warned us that there would be some climbing on today's route, including a visit to our favorite hill, Mt. Eden. Everyone groaned, but he reminded us that although Palm Springs will not include such hills, there is a lot of wind so the hill training will allow us to be able to prepare for all the wind we will face in Palm Springs.

We headed out right before 8am and it was another good pace! I felt really good and the team looked good too! Mt. Eden came early in the ride (after only about 10 miles) so I kicked its butt! I have been feeling really confident after last week's ride and the new bike was responding well! I was the first one to the top! Right on! Coach Rick and I had a good pace going down the other side of Mt. Eden to the bottom. I love fast descents with lots of corners. I get to use some of my motorcycling skills to attack the corners. Sometimes, I even feel like putting a knee down on the pavement! :)

I forgot to mention that this ride was titled on our TNT calendar as, "Old La Honda Road". Well, after riding through some familiar roads such as Foothill, Alpine, Sand Hill, we came to Old La Honda Rode at about mile 35. We stopped at the bottom of the hill and our team coach, Kristy, gave us a little pep talk and gave us some tips to get up this long, tough, hill. For the life of me, I still can't remember a word that she said!

It was sooooo frickin' hard! I can honestly say that Old La Honda Road kicked my butt! I started with the leaders in my group, but that changed quickly! It was a 3.4 mile climb where so many times I just wanted to quit and have someone get me on the side of the road! Other cyclists with other groups were passing by me like I was standing still. At times, I looked down at my computer and saw that I was moving as slow as 3 mph! I almost fell over I was going so slow. But, I thought better go slow than to stop and lose momentum. I was breathing so hard that I was getting dizzy! My lower back was starting to kill me and then for some reason my arms started to get really sore! Probably because I was holding way too hard on the handlebars!

Remember earlier when I said that I was first up on Mt. Eden? Well, this time, even though I finished, I ended up 2nd to last in my group. And when I got to the top and saw all my teammates waiting for me (there is about 8 riders in our mini-team), I had to get off the bike, stretch my back out and then I thought for sure I was going to throw up! Seriously! I could not catch my breath fast enough! A couple of the coaches/mentors told me how Old La Honda is an infamous climb for bay area riders and now I can say that I have climbed it! Oh yeah, big deal, it kicked my a$$!!

Ok, now we are on Skyline and this is totally familiar to me from my motorcycling days. We ended up at what we used to call "Four Corners" or "Alice's" (for Alice's restaurant). But, unlike my motorcycling days, we didn't stop to eat! Instead, we headed down 84 towards highway 280. The descent was fun, but Coach Kristy and I got caught behind a cargo van so we couldn't get as much speed as we wanted! Oh well.

We ended up on Canada Road and headed towards Edgewood. Again, this area was familiar since we did our pacelining clinics on Edgewood. In fact, we had a rest stop at the corner of Canada and Edgewood. We got to refuel and top off our water bottles thanks again to the great SAG support that is provided by our awesome volunteers! But before going, Coach Kristy warned us that we still had a couple of more hills to get through on this last 18 miles! Great! I along, with my other teammates were definitely tired!

The last 18 miles was really tough with one last climb on Elena at around mile 62. My legs were about to explode! I couldn't believe how sore I was already and we weren't even done. When Coach Rick said, "It's all down hill from here", I just yelled out load! I couldn't believe how happy I was to see the Foothill College parking lot! Wow, it's amazing how I changed from being so confident at the beginning of the morning to feeling like I just got my butt kicked at the end of the ride! Nevertheless, my teammates and I did it! We just rode over 65 miles with a lot of hill climbs. The stats included total miles of 65.81, total time (from start to finish) 6 hours, 4 minutes (although total ride time was about 5 hours...we had 3 rest/bathroom stops), total climbing of about 4665 feet (top hill grade of 14%), top speed of 39.8 mph, approximately 4995 calories burned! Needless to say, I pigged out when I got home! And, even though it was probably one of the hardest things I had to do physically, I was very happy to do it and I did feel good. I didn't want to get in the habit of napping or resting too much so I ended up cleaning the bike, cleaned and lubed the chain, and played Guitar Band with the kids! All in a days work! :) Tomorrow, "Recovery Ride". I don't even know what that is!

Spinning in the New Year

After being on vacation and only riding some flats, I must admit that I kind of missed hill climbs and spin class! Pretty sick, I know! Well, my mind changed after Coach Peggy told us that we were going to work harder during the new year! Oh great! I was working so hard during the first set of sprints that I broke my spin bike! :) Really, I did. I moved over to the next bike and caught up to the group.

Coach Peggy had us doing sprints, climbs, and jumps! Tough class, but what cracked me up was when Coach Peggy said, "Ok guys, since the rides you guys will be doing will be longer, I am going to start making these spin classes a bit tougher." Tougher? I thought we were already at tough? Oh well, I'll be back for more! There is still about 4 of us who have attended each class and is close to earning our $100 from Coach Peggy!

Hit My Goal...Again!!

I am absolutely amazed! To all my friends and family! You guys rock! You guys are the best! Together we surpassed my fundraising goal of $7,500! WOW!!! As many of you know, I set my initial goal at $5,000. I thought it would be difficult, but I blew that away in only one week thanks to all of you! Many, many, many thanks to all of you who are not only helping to support me in my journey, but for helping to stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives! Like I said when we first started this journey, "Together We Can Fight". http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/tdps10/hdeguzman

Long Sunday Ride

We were given an extra day to recover from New Years as our next long ride would be on Sunday, 1/3/10! We started out the new year with a nice 58 mile ride starting in Milpitas. I was a bit nervous since this would be by far my longest ride. The last time I rode with my new team, I had cramped up at mile 10. That was not fun and I didn't want that to happen again. We were to be ready to ride at 7:30am. Well, put it this way, I was out in Milpitas by around 6:30am! I was excited and nervous! :)

It was frickin' cold! Excuse my language, but it was very, very cold!! The coaches kept saying not to worry because we wouldn't be cold for very long. Yeah, I guess they were right. We were warned that we had two big hills to get over, Palomares and Calaveras. It was a nice little 15 mile warm up before getting to Palomares. We were all getting psyched to go up our first hill, when we heard, "FLAT!!!" One of our teammates got a flat on his rear wheel right before getting to the hill. As a team, we all waited for him to get his wheel changed. He was having some challenges so we cooled down pretty quick! We saw other teams from our TNT team go by us. After about 30 minutes, we were finally off. Time to attack the hill! One thing that came to me while climbing with one of my riding mates, Henry, was I said, "Hey Henry, you know, I don't think I would ever do a ride or climb like this if I wasn't with this team." The funny thing was that he agreed with me and he has been riding for a long time! I guess my point is that it's thanks to this team that I get to experience this! I love it! Not only am I loving the riding part, but it's all for such a good cause. I never lose site of why I signed up to do this in the first place. If you're wondering why, check out my website at http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/tdps10/hdeguzman .

The best part about getting to the top of Palomares was seeing my wife, Laarni, and my oldest daughter Hana. Yup, they volunteered to support our first of 3 rest stops. It was so cool to see them. They, along with the other two volunteers were cheering us on! I've never done anything like this in the past so I have nothing to compare to, but I am absolutely amazed at the people who volunteer their time to support us and provide us with great food so that we could refuel! Now, I can say that my family has volunteered to support us on our ride! Awesome feeling!

Ok, as much as it was tempting to get in the van with my family, it was time to go. We had a nice little decent to get to the bottom of the hill. There was 8 of us in our little mini group but we ended up breaking up in two smaller groups of 5 and 3. One of our teammates was feeling a bit sick and cramping so he took it easy. The rest of us charged ahead and even though I haven't ridden very long with these folks, we did a pretty good paceline all the way to the next rest stop at mile 38. Same deal, different volunteers, but great food and fuel! Oh, and a bathroom too! :)

Next hurdle...the Calaveras hill. Our coach told us to just go at our own pace climbing and then we would meet at the bottom of the hill. I tried to keep up with my climbing buddy Henry, but after a while he dropped me. He was chasing one of our other teammates Barry. He took the lead up the hill, followed by Henry and then me! Not bad for someone who was on a slower team just two weeks prior. I owe it all to the hill climb repeats! Now I know what everyone was talking about when they said that climbing Calaveras could be frustrating because once you think you're starting a decent, here comes another hill! I had to crack up a few times because it started to get pretty funny! I actually enjoyed it. My new bike was working really well! Whenever I "hammered" it, the bike just responded and seemed to move so easily and fast!

We got to the bottom right before our final decent and we waited for the rest of the team. It was all downhill from there! I followed Coach Rick to the bottom and all I can say is that we were flying! We hit speeds of 42 mph! I'm sure there is a lot faster out there, but man, that felt really fast!! Coach Rick even said that he was impressed with how fast I was going! We made it back to our cars and all I could do was yell! I was sooooo pumped up finishing 58 miles and I still felt like I had more in the tank!

The best part of the ride....no cramps!!!! I'm getting better! Can't wait until next week's Old La Honda ride...68 miles!!

Happy Holidays!!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! This year, the family and I decided to go down to Southern California to spend some time with my brother and his family. But, I had to bring the bike with me to keep up with the training! With a van full of kids, luggage, and presents, the trusty ole steed had to go on top of the van on a bicycle rack! I hope she'll be ok!

Probably one of the best presents I could get from my wife, Laarni, was when she told me that she wanted to try and enjoy this new found sport of cycling with me! Yup, we found a bike shop near my brother's home in Chino that rented some nice Specialized (all carbon fiber frame) bikes. They also sold some nice cycling clothes. Laarni has always done well in the sport of shopping! :o)

Laarni had not ridden in over 20 years. Her first ride was around my brother's neighborhood, which by the way was very bike friendly since they had bike lanes everywhere, and she successfully pedaled for about 13 miles. The day after Christmas, we decided to head out on the Santa Ana River Trail. We went out and rode 22 miles. Not bad for someone who didn't know how to shift gears or use the brakes! It was a fun day. So now what, Laarni needs a new bike. Well, the great supportive wife that she is, recommends to me that I give her my bike and then I go out and shop for a new bike! WHAT? Uh, ok, I'll sacrifice and buy a new bike dear!!

Needless to say, it didn't take me long to find something that would work for me! Since we were down south, I looked around down there, test drove some bikes and even looked on-line. I found the new bike at a shop (Art's Cyclery, which by the way provides excellent customer service and has a fantastic shop) San Luis Obispo. Instead of driving home on hwy 5, we decided to go up 101 and pick up the new bike! I was ready for the new year on a new bike!! I feel faster already!