Saturday 12/18/10 - Rain, and More Rain - Almaden Ride

Ready for the Rain!

The forecast all week was for rain over this weekend.  But, the team always meets rain or shine and if it's not coming down hard at the start, we ride.  The cool thing for yesterday's ride (Saturday 12/18) was that Laarni's Tri team also started their training day at the Almaden VTA station, which is where the Cycle Team met.  Thanks to our wonderful babysitter, Laarni and I were able to go out and train at the same time today.

I'm sure the rain forecast had something to do with it, but we only had one participant from our ride group show up today. The other groups were fairly small as well, but not a bad turnout all in all!  It wasn't raining very hard, in fact, there were only little sprinkles here and there when we got started.

Trudy was our only rider for the day.  So, she got a lot of attention from Coach Colin.  Trudy was telling me how hard she was pushing it at last weekend's ride in Los Gatos.  She said she had never ridden at a pace like ours before.  Well Trudy, you ain't seen nothing yet!  :)



Jean and Linda Supporting
the Team at Rest Stop 2



Today's ride took us along Almaden Expressway through McKean/Uvas and around the reservoir.  Our first rest stop was at mile 18.  One of the nice things about TNT are the volunteers.  Our support at the first rest stop was actually provided by some folks that were on my team my first season last winter.  Cheers to Diane (who was at the first rest stop) and to Linda and Jean (who were at the second rest stop).  They provided some good grub for us! 

Maria, Ruth, Nicole (Drivers)
Braving the Rain

We also can't forget to thank the drivers who are out there supporting us in case of emergencies.  They drive the roads to make sure they are there for us to help us with flats or any other types of mechanicals.  Thanks to Ruth (our SAG - Support and Gear Captain), Nicole (our Team Captain), and to Maria (a Summer participant and volunteer). Luckily the drivers had an "uneventful" day!  That's how we like it!





Trudy and Colin after a wet and dirty ride!

Coach Colin really pushed Trudy today Colin has a great way of giving participants technical advice but at the same time encourages them so that they push themselves a little to become better cyclists.  As the ride went on, we definitely got rained on big time!  We were pretty wet when we were done, not to mention pretty dirty!  The dirt really showed up on Trudy's yellow jacket!  What was so satisfying for me was to watch Trudy ride through the rain, get totally soaked, get totally dirty, but still have a great big smile on her face!  We even got a few "woo-hoo's" from her. She was pretty pumped up after she did this ride.  She was proud of herself as she should be!  She road great and had a great attitude!  GO TRUDY!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

H