TnT's coordinator, John made a special trip out to support us this morning at our meeting spot at the Poinsetta Train Station in Carlsbad. He put on a beautiful pancake spread complete with chocolate ships in recognition and appreciation of our hard work and unflagging attendance. Having piping hot fresh pancakes right before the ride was well worth getting up an extra 45 minutes early.
Before every ride, we have what is called a Mission Moment. This is where one of our teammates, coaches, mentors gives a brief talk about why they are participating in Team in Training. This week, my mentor Lisa, gave a very powerful, personal, heart-wrenching account of how she lost her best friend to Leukemia. Not a dry eye in the house afterwards. While the rides are fun and working out is great, it's important to remember why we are doing this. We are helping to find a cure for cancer and to provide assistance and support to afflicted families.
Today's ride was a 70+ mile ride all over San Diego. The ride through the backroads and countryside is exactly what I imagined when I joined the cycle team. Take a look at the map to see the amount of ground we covered.
We started out on the Coast before moving eastward. Our journey took us through the best bike path I've ever been on. It was a completely isolated stretch of 8 miles through the hills of Oceanside. The path was bikes, joggers only and it felt luxurious to not have to dodge cars for a change. The group of 9 riders maintained an excellent pace line at clocked consistent speeds of 18-19 MPH over the distance. It was great to cover so much ground at that good of a clip. It's frustrating riding up and down the coast and having to break your momentum at stop lights and signs.
After moving inland, we hit some beautiful country roads like Lilac Lane and Champagne Avenue. Lilacs and Champagne...sounds like a Sunday Brunch. The two stretches of roads were about 5 miles each and featured long steady climbs. Think about climbing 3-4% grade for 5 miles. It's a workout. We had a guest ride mentor assisting us this week. Timmy is a phenomenal experienced rider and former mentor of the HIT team. I'm drawing a blank on what HIT stands for right now but their main goal is SPEED. They try and complete 100-mile bike rides in under 5 hours. Timmy stayed with me the entire distance of the two main climbs and gave me some great encouragement and tips. It was nice to have company on the climbs as I'm usually flying solo on those.
After gaining the altitude we had some nice long downhills. The 7-ish miles downhill down Del Dios was gorgeous. We passed right by Lake Hodges which is a jewel of a lake and a beautiful sight. I'm going to have to investigate it further in the future. I've been in San Diego for over 7 years now and had never been out in this part of the county. There's no better way to see it then on a bike.
Mentor Jay's family provided SAG (Support Aid Group) today meaning that they fed us on our two mid-ride breaks. Big thanks to the Simon's for spending their entire Saturday day to assist us. I don't think I've ever had a better Peanut Butter and banana sandwich. Here's a photo of the team at one of the stops.
I'm the pudgy one, 4th from the left.
After all that we headed back westward for another 25 miles to make it back to our cars. The ride took over 6 hours. Total distance was just over 70 miles with over 3,300 feet of climbing.
The drive home was a bit of an adventure as I was nodding off from being so tired after the ride. Had to keep pinching myself and slapping myself in the face to stay awake. LOL. Got home, had a bit to eat, took a shower and then NAP TIME.
We're doing basically the same ride next week with only a few minor changes. I'm already looking forward to it.
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