"You haven't lived!"

I was pretty much a bum on Friday. I was planning on doing the La Jolla cove swim with my team. HOWEVER I am just scared, and a you know what, and will find ANY excuse to swim elsewhere. My friend Katie and I are both wooses, so we quickly talked our ways out of the swim. She at least made it to the pool, I made it to the couch for a nap, then out to our favorite Italian restaurant for some homemade gnocchi and the most amazing artichoke I have ever eaten (it was boiled in water and white wine, then sauteed with garlic, had a very long eatable stem...yum). Whatever its a recovery week.

The alarm went off at 6 today and I started my Saturday rituals (packing my bag, making sure I have all my essentials, spraying lots of sunblock, loading the bike on my car....you get the idea). Since it is a recovery week we were ONLY doing 26 miles. We met at the UCSD campus, and had a training on how to give and receive water bottles while remaining on your bike. Apparently on the course they have two stations to refuel. Some people practiced "bunny hops" in which you would hop over debris with your bike. That just sounded like a sure trip to the dentist for losing my teeth so I just stuck to the handoffs.

We got our course stats for the day and I quickly noticed that there were a few streets with the word "mountain" in them. That typically means a nice climb. The hills I can handle, but then I see that we are riding on the 5!! In case you are wondering, that is the largest freeway in San Diego. As coach Trent said "you haven't lived until you've ridden on the freeway." I was a little scared but kind of psyched. We took off and were quickly turning onto the onramp. It was so exhilarating and fun to have cars whipping by you going 70+ mph. My friend Katie and I pretty much hysterically laughed at ourselves at this point. I can only imagine what people on the highway thought. Apparently it is legal at this part but I am not so sure. We soon hit the Sorrento Valley hill which did not look like much but boy it was a doozey. It was only about 3 miles into our ride so a bit tough to get your body acclimated to that. Needless to say my heartrate was way up and I was panting like a boston terrier. Next up was Black Mountain road, which was actually not as bad as the hill before. At the top of this was our trusty SAG man Marty. If he were fast enough he would have caught a picture of me peeing in a median, but I was too quick for him. Would have been a good pic though. Next time. Next we got on the 56 bike path and headed towards the 101 to go up Torrey Pines. This is the same hill that I struggled with months ago. Today it felt like a bump in the road. I could not be happier. My heartrate stayed pretty steady and I stayed in my middle gear the whole time. At one point a large group of older men were riding by me. One of them had a very strange looking bike so of course I inquired about it. One guy (Carl) responded "its for his neck, no neck pain at all anymore" my reply "really have you got anything for vagina's?" The guy nearly fell off his bike after asking me to repeat myself about 4 times before he believed what was coming out of my mouth. We quickly introduced ourselves and we gabbed all the way up the hill. That probably made things go by a bit quicker as well. All in all a great ride.

About 10 or so of us went out for some grub after and I so very much enjoyed my mimosa, oh and bacon, and french toast, and eggs. YUM.

Todays garmin stats:
timing: avg speed 12.4, max 30.8
elevation: 2228 elevation gain
Heart rate: average 160, max 182
Time: 2:07, distance 26.37 miles
calories burned: 1370

Now we are off to do some sightseeing at Cabrillo National Monument. Such tourists