I had a nice surprise when I showed up this morning. Coach John had fired up the propane stove and was serving pancakes, bacon and some nice OJ. Nice way to start the day. We had two guest speakers today providing the "mission moment". Each of the two speakers are cancer patients. The first speaker was David, who is a myloma survivor. He is an avid bike rider and has completed several programs with the Team after his cancer went into remission. He just happened to be riding by when Coach Ricky saw him and asked him to say a few words to the group. He didn't speak at length but he made a few points:
1) The medication that he is taking to control his cancer was developed as a direct result of monies that were donated by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
2) He has no choice but to "fight" as it is a fight for survival. He has a great deal of respect for our Team since we make the conscious choice to get out of bed at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings and utilize several of our evenings each week in order to raise money for the Leukemia Society.
3) What we do makes a difference, and is appreciated.
The second speaker was a current Leukemia patient who echoed a lot of what Dave said and is actually looking into participating in a future event with the Team as his health improves.
Today's ride was much better than last week. The route was again the same as last week with just a few extra miles to bring the total up to 50 total miles. I have the Lighthouse Century next weekend so I limited the mileage to just the team mileage and didn't go for any "extra credit".
We started with two climbs up Torrey Pines was was pretty tough not being warm. I rode with the C group again and we are really starting to gel. We had some brilliant stretches where the pace line was tight and we cruising long distances at an average speed of 22-24 mph. If we can keep that up we are going to do pretty well at Tucson. I felt much stronger than last week where I think I was fighting a cold and not sleeping enough. Today, I felt great the entire day including all the climbs. It's amazing what getting a good night's sleep will do for you. The ride was mostly uneventful, with the exception of the last 10 miles where a couple of the rider's really started to tire after the blistering pace we were laying down. The pace line started stretching out and yo-yo-ing. As the group gets stronger I expect this to happen less frequently. Last part of the day was a third ascent up Torrey Pines which I massacred. I took that last climb better than the first. Great confidence builder for the Century next week.
The coming week is a "back down" week, where I taper my effort to let my body recover from all the riding I have been doing so I go into Lighthouse strong.
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