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)! :)
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)! :)
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