Note: today, May 21, is the final day to submit donations to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you'd like to support me with a donation, please visit my fundraising page. Thanks for your consideration!
Yesterday we rode our final and longest training ride of the season. It was 80 miles long, from Santa Cruz, up the coast all the way up to San Gregorio, and then back along Highway 1. During those moments when I could actually look up and enjoy the scenery, it was spectacular: coastline, waves, farmland, charming old farm houses.
It was very hard for me. On the way up, we were fighting a headwind and had to really rely on our paceline to conserve energy. When I got to the front of the line to lead, it was like hitting a wall! To lead into the wind, you'd have to downshift, even if you were going downhill. By the time we made it to San Gregorio, I was pretty tired. I inhaled calories and salt as much as I could, including such fine nutrition as brownies (several!), potato chips, peanut butter cookies, ... and of course lots of water.
On the way back, our team was anxious to get take advantage of the tail wind that we now had, and they started hammering it home! While we usually average ~15 miles/hour overall on our rides, we were flying down the coast at 20-25 mph! I was struggling to stay with the group. I'm not sure why it was so hard, but I sure hope the trend doesn't continue to our event in only two weeks.
I brought my little camera along in my jersey and snapped some pictures when we stopped en route. Sorry, no action shots. When we were riding, it was all I could do to hang on!
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| TNT Spring 2007 Santa Cruz 80 Miler |
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