We had our first buddy ride today, which is a ride organized by the team, but not supported by the team. The mentors and coaches all participate when they can, and my pacegroup's mentor, Brian, led us on an exciting 35 mile ride with a very cruel hill at the end.
We started our Saturday morning ride with a cloud-filled sky, but no raindrops in sight and thankfully it didn't rain, although it was very cold. At 9am we headed out from Edgewood and Canada, a very popular cycling spot (the Lance Armstrong LiveStrong timetrial took place there earlier in the day), and went out to Hwy 92 and back for a 7 mile warm-up. We followed Canada to Olive Hill, a popular Run Team route, to Albion, found our way along King's Mountain Road to Tripp and eventually to Woodside Road.
From there we headed up Woodside and split to Portola, dumping out onto Sandhill/Portola and eventually ran into Apline. We had the pleasure of heading downhill for the first time that day along Apline, but only for a short jaunt to Arastradero, where we turned off and headed up to Page Mill.
At Page Mill we took another short ride downhill (I needed it) and turned right onto Arastradero, only to make a U-turn and come back down to Page Mill and up Page Mill toward Junipero Serra. It's funny that in a car the hills never seem that challenging. Even in my hybrid. Who knew Page Mill gets kinda steep before you hit Junipero Serra?!
We finally had a good amount of flat and downhill riding as we made our way to Edgewood on Junipero Serra / Alamdea de las Pulgas. I knew the ride on Edgewood, up to 280 and back to our starting point, was about 2.5 miles of steady climbing. I had no idea how hard it would be, especially being out of shape and by no means a cyclist! But guess what... I made it up that hill without stopping and completed the longest ride of my life - 34.85 miles! Nevermind that for the most part I was traveling between 3.6 and 4.6 mph and was shaking terribly when I finally finished!
Some of my pacegroup were there - Johnny and Connie - and we picked up a few extras a long the way, a past participant helping out on the buddy ride, and a few faster females from another pacegroup. I trailed behind the group for most of the ride, but they were nice enough to stop and wait for me. We even stopped at Starbucks on the way back for an espresso break and watched the groups behind us pass by and cheered for them. Just a note: I opted for Gatorade and Sports Beans instead - my heart thanked me later on our climb up Edgewood!
Here's what the day looked like for all of us, on our first buddy ride of the season. 35 miles and counting!
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