What a week! I did just as I had planned and rode to and from work Monday and Tuesday! 106 miles in 2 days! I started Monday morning with the idea of it being a "recovery" week. I rode pretty easy that morning and felt pretty good the whole ride. I headed home at about 6 PM and decided to try to hit it. As the weeks of this high gas price year roll on it seems that there are more and more commuters everyday! That meant one thing for me on the way home... rabbits to chase! I dropped about 5 minutes off of my fastest time! The best part was that I felt pretty consistent and in control. Tuesday I awoke and was pretty thrashed. I was having second thoughts about riding but dragged my lazy butt out of bed and took off! Once I got warmed up my legs seemed rather snappy and I decided to push it at about 95%. Once over the hill and into the valley I had one of my customers from the bike shop ride up on me. He was on his Gary Fisher Superfly outfitted for a daily road commute. He was running some narrow street tires and keeping a pretty good pace. We talked and rode at about 80% and I ended up about 30 seconds off my fastest time! I had a long day at work and ended up not leaving until about 6:40 PM and that sure did not leave me much time to get home! So I gave it my all and hammered at about 105% the whole way home! I didn't feel as strong as the day before but I felt pretty freaking good. I definitely feel as though I am riding at a quicker, stronger pace! I had to wake up at 3:45 AM Wed. morning for work and I will say that I was feeling pretty thrashed. I took the day off from riding and hit the sheets early! Another early day at work on Thursday and I was hurting from the 345 AM wake up call! I was excited about the Thursday night Fixie ride. We had talked about doing Hidden Valley so I was a little freaked with the lack of energy that I was feeling! We ended up not doing Hidden Valley but we rode about 20 miles through some pretty hilly parts of town. We ended the ride with a test run of the first half of the "Tour de T.O. Blvd" race course. After all the climbing I managed to get the lead but when we hit a yellow at Westlake Blvd...Sammy blew through it and that was it! I hung in for second and figured I could make a pretty good run at the actual race if I am feeling good!
Friday morning I hit the dirt and wanted to push pretty hard. I picked a climb heavy trail route and hit the gas! I felt pretty snappy and then I came across this sign:
ACTIVE BEES IN AREA!
Let's just say that I slowly pedaled through Sulfer Springs. This sign wasn't there last week! I pushed at about 90% for 1 hour and 15 minutes. THe heat took it's toll and I blew before hitting the top. I found a pace and then recovered a bit on the way home.
Saturday brought a ride with the parentals. We loaded up the new ride with the bikes and headed to the harbor. A little ride halfway to Santa Barbara was on tap!
Check our Pop's HUGE Hoops!
The fog was pretty socked in and it was cool. Mom took off like a Jack Rabbit and said that she needed to warm up a bit. It wasn't long until you could tell that my mom was feeling a bit of pain. She was having some cramping trouble and was trying to push through it. We made it to the turn-around point and she stopped to take a rest as I jumped on my Dad's new Gary Fisher Cobia to try it out! I am very envious of the big hoops and really, really, really starting to fein for a Siren Song!
We made it about 5 miles back before Mom had to make the very tough decision to call it a day! We decided that I would ride back to the car and bring it back so Mom could drive it home. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to do an 8 mile time trial! Legs were feeling good so I pushed it all the way back to the car at 105%. Once we got Moms bike on the car she high-tailed it back to the house and my dad and I pushed on.
The Ventura County Fair was going on and getting through Downtown was a little freaky even for me! We made it over to the Boardwalk and headed back towards Oxnard. When all was said and done we had done about 40 miles and got to spend some great time together! My Ma was pretty bummed and I tried to explain that sometimes your body just doesn't want to cooperate. I know that that doesn't really help to hear...it just pretty much sucks! Oh yeah...what I learned from my mom is that Eggplant is full of nutritional value! I had read in a book a couple of years ago that it has none and told her that. She quickly printed some stuff off to prove me way wrong! Thanks Ma.
Sunday morning brought another mountain bike ride with my buddy Mike. We had decided to hit up some trails that we don't really ride all that often. I rode from the house to the trailhead about 5 miles away and when Mike showed, we decided to do a trail that I had never ridden. It was straight up from the beginning and it was awesome! Killer trail I had never ridden in my own home trail system! Great ride..Great week..time to recover!
Peace,
Lucas
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