Woke up on time, got going on time and ended up having a great time today. Of course, it helped to be a little more prepared than I normally am.
I spent about an hour last night giving my bike some TLC. I hadn’t touched it after riding in the rain, so it was nice and crusty. So, out came the bike polish and Triflow. First I wiped down the rims, which were nice and black with brake pad grime. Then I sprayed the bike with bike polish and cleaned the road grime off of it. Then I cleaned and lubed the chain and sprockets. Lastly, I put it in my car so I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning.
This morning, I got off to a good start and got to the high school on time. The skies were clear, but it was really cold. It didn’t help that we set up on the shady side of the Los Gatos High School parking lot! But we got a nice lesson in cyclist nutrition and an inspiring talk from one of our honorees, Ruth Perkins. She has a form of leukemia that isn’t curable–YET–and is alive today because of the advances in treatments. Her doctor told her that had she developed leukemia in 1996 instead of 2006, he would’ve given her three years to live. But she’s doing relatively well having undergone two stem cell treatments and a few rounds of chemo. I say relatively because her numbers are up again, so she’s looking at more treatments in the near future. But we ride for people like her, so I hope that our efforts pay off and she can reap the benefits soon.
The ride was essentially what David M. and I did last week, just a little longer with a little less climbing. Once we got moving, I warmed up right away and was feeling pretty good. Then I got a little test. Our group had some fast people and some not-so-fast people and the difference was pretty dramatic. Since I didn’t know if I should’ve been keeping everyone together or let the faster people go out on their own, I waited for our coach, who was working with one of the newer riders on how to pick the right gear for the conditions, and asked him what he wanted us to do. He basically told me to work with the faster group until there was a good place to wait. Soooo, I had to sprint back to the faster group to tell them what was going on. I was really moving, but that got my blood pumping. I was a little concerned that I might have gone too fast, too soon, but I felt really good the rest of the way, so maybe I need something like that every ride? I don’t know. We’ll see how I feel during hill repeats tomorrow.