Today's long mileage day starting with some exciting fund raising news. Our team has passed the $100,000 mark in fundraising!
The mission moment was delivered by a Leukemia survivor who started his cycling career after being diagnosed and going into remission. He described how the LL&S had personally helped him in his battle with Leukemia. As a rider, he said he knows exactly what we are putting our bodies through and the level of dedication and time that we commit to raise money and thanked us. He was very inspirational and even more inspiring is that he also rode with the ACE team today. Awesome.
We started in Poway and had perfect weather for the entire day. It was quite a contrast from the week before where I nearly got heat stroke. The planned ride for the day was a about 80 miles with an estimated 3,500 feet of climbing. Here's a map of the ride.
We made a couple of navigational errors while traversing Rancho Santa Fe that resulted in adding a few more miles to the overall totals. This was particularly funny since we were riding with Coach Rick, the guy who planned the route This irony prompted one of my teammates, Mark to post the following map which was his recollection of the route.
Too funny.
I made a couple of adjustments this week to try and deal with my nagging foot strain. I rode with a shoe insert that provided arch support. The experiment was a great success as I felt no strain the entire day. This is a big contrast from the week before where my foot was throbbing at the end of the ride.
One complication that I found is that my padded biking gloves appear to be at the end of their life span. The padding is gel and it has flattened out or something to the point where I'm not getting much benefit from them. Consequently, I nearly got a blister in the crook of both my hands between my thumb and index finger where I grip the "hoods". Time for new gloves.
Following is a photo taken of my climbing the inside trail of Torrey Pines State park at around mile 60.
I was still feeling pretty good at this point. We had a planned SAG (support and gear) stop at mile 70. I suggested that we just bypass it and get the ride over with as we had already been on the road nearly 6 hours and I just wanted to be done. After the climb we start heading back inland. About 5 miles later, I start bonking out. I get really really tired and really hungry. The SAG stop couldn't come soon enough. I got there nearly on my last legs and proceeded to chow down on a thick PB&J sandwich and drank lots of ic cold water. I felt better within a matter of minutes. We get rolling after a pretty long stop, nearly 20 minutes of rest. Around mile 78 we get to the last big hill of the day, which was Scripps-Poway road. It is a long constant grind of a hill which I couldn't believe we had to climb at that point of the ride. It seemed pretty sadistic. After a bit of grumbling we get it over with.
Thankfully the last few miles were all downhill which was a great way to finish up the ride.
Totals for the day 83.66 Miles 5,300 feet of climbing. The 5300 feet of climbing was just a wee bit more than the 3,500 feet we were told to expect. Hmm. Somebody needs to get their elevation estimator calibrated.
Got back to the parking lot, very pooped, nearly whipped but extremely proud to have survived. As an added bonus I reached a new mileage and climbing milestone on this ride.
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