We Did It!!

What a fantastic feeling! We did it! You, me, and the rest of my teammates! That's right, you guys did it too since so may of you helped me through this great experience! One of the best experiences of my life! Thanks so much to all of you who supported my efforts! I was recognized on Friday evening as the top fundraiser at $8,000 even between both the Silicon Valley team and the Orange County team, which was the only other TNT team at the event! Again, many thanks to you all!

I have a lot of other details to post, as well as a ton of pictures, but the family and I are taking some more time off to do some other fun things (short trip to Santa Barbara and to San Francisco) so I'll get back to you all later! Lots more to share!!Time to go to the celebration dinner!

It's Almost that Time!!

We got in last night at around 9pm. Drive time was just under 8 hours! I was able to pack my bike in the van, along with all the other stuff! :) Packing with 4 kids is quite the chore! Laarni is great at trying to pack everything to make sure the kids feel at home!

Got up this morning to a nice bright day. The two boys, Marcus and Zachary got up really early (around 6am) so I decided to get up too and get them ready to go, especially since they were making all kinds of noise and the girls were still sleeping! :)

We headed out for a walk towards downtown on the search for a Starbucks so I could go on-line and get some work done! (Hear that Craig and Lisa) :) I got a few pics on the way here! :)

The sun is shining and the weather is supposed to get to 79 degrees by today and tomorrow. Right on! Wish me luck!

Last Recovery Ride of the Season!

I didn't think I would need a recovery ride today, but I did. I woke up with some pretty sore legs. Although yesterday was a short ride, it was a pretty tough ride! Luckily I have a second pair of cycling shoes because my first pair was still wet from yesterday's ride!

This was a fun ride today since several folks who have never been on this recovery ride came out to join us for the first time. I'll miss these folks!

Send Off Ride and Celebration!

This is our last official TNT training ride! Kind of sad to tell you the truth. I can't believe that next week is our actual 100 mile event. How time flies when you're having fun. But, we had one more training day, and to be honest it wasn't that fun!

It was supposed to be an "easy" 30 mile ride around the Los Altos Hills. Well, those hills suck! We left Shoup Park in Los Altos and headed towards Magdalena. At mile 3, we hit a wall called Mora. Very short, less than a mile, but it was straight up hill. I checked my computer when I was gasping for air and I saw that one part of the hill was at 24 percent! Are these guys crazy? We were literally crawling up this hill! We were all gasping for air when we got to the top and we were only at mile 3!

Oh, I forgot to mention, it was pouring rain on us. Of course! We had more hills when we hit Alta Mont! WTF???!!!! Sorry, but that's how I really felt. Only because I was ticked at myself! I took for granted that because it was only 30 miles, I didn't prepare myself mentally or physically. Last night I stayed up late thinking I didn't need much rest! Wrong! I also took kind of a cavalier attitude that it would be a very easy ride! Wrong again!

Oh well, we got through most of the ride. When we headed down Alpine Road (similar to our recovery ride route), our coach told us that it was tradition to bag the rest of the ride and go to a coffee shop to get some coffee! Sounds good to us Coach! We don't want to break tradition! Well, we were the first group to leave the park today, so most of the participants were surprised to see all the other teams at the coffee shop! But the coaches weren't surprised! Come to find out, most of the other teams did even a shorter ride than us and went straight to the coffee shop! WOW! I mean most of them were there with smiles on their faces, dry, and sipping coffee. When we told them how hard that wall was that we had to climb at mile 3, most of them said, "What wall?" Great, thanks Coach Kristy. One more ass kicking for us for good measure huh? :)

We all left the coffee house and got back to Shoup Park. We all had to dry up and change into some dry clothes. We also had a potluck brunch and had a great time! All last minute announcements were made and they told us what to expect next weekend...the time has come. I got a bunch of photos from our party. It was a fun time. You could check out the pictures here...hope you enjoy them:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=360796452407%3A1252984329

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)!