Team In Training :: Training for Tour de Tuscon

tour de tucson - weekend

the team in training tent at the finish line of the tour de tucson

The official ride is tagged as 111 miles but my odemeter only reads 109 so...whatever...it was long.

111 miles on a gorgeous saturday
the ride times are posted at the event site (i am down in the 3200s)
the pasta party the night before had Bob Roll as the guest speaker

all my images are posted over at flickr—some sent directly from the cell phone during the ride (although not as many as I would have liked)

thanks to everyone who helped me raise over $5200 for the Leukemia Society to find a cure.

Taper weekend

Rode our last group team ride yesterday. About 27 miles. Many of the groups took some short breaks at Starbucks and Peets. We followed the ride with a potluck gathering and lots of info for next week.

Today, Sheila and I rode 50 miles. Werode out the front door, down Alma and then down Monterey Highway. Straigh, flat and about 20 miles to Morgan Hill. We went past downtown Morgan Hill to the Starbucks. We sat and had some coffee then took off to come home. Instead of making the left back out to the highway, we decided to cross the street and then cross again. Once across the first part I promptly fell over on the bike. My butt and left knee are bruised. I unclipped the right foot but was doing a really slow turn left and lost my balance. Ouch!
We then went back down Monterey to Cochrane and over to Coyote Creek trail for a couple of miles and then back out to the highway. Rough road and lots of cars. Almost home and we decided to add another five miles to make the full 50, so we continued down Willow to the Los Gatos creek trail where we just did a short mile and a half. Turned around and then home. Yay 50!.

The rest of the week is supposed to be restful - short easy rides to save up the energy for Saturday.

84.2 miles of pedaling

Long, long, long ride.

84.2 miles of longness. Painful numb butt longness.

The day was gorgeous, I was strong and this was our longest ride ever and our last long team ride - since the century is in 2 weeks. Next week we do a taper ride and a potluck gathering to celebrate.

Today we ventured down Santa Teresa through Morgan Hill and into Gilroy then over and around Uvas and Calero Reservoirs—we've done this part of the ride twice before. The we continued back towards Morgan Hill and up the wall - Sycamore Hill. I had to stop halfway up—this is a short but steep hill and if you start too fast you are screwed! Finally to the top where Kristi and Coach Jan were cheering us on to spit on the hill. A brief shot on the inhaler—exercise induced asthma is a bitch! and then on to do another loop into Gilroy and back around Uvas Reservoir—again! After the rest stop at the reservoir - with great support from our honorees and thier families and finally down McKean along Chesbro Reservoir and at last to Almaden.

The headwind was strong along various parts of the ride—so the fact we were pacelining really helped.

The last 4 miles were long, long cause byt then my butt hurt.

Coming into the end rocked—only a couple of minutes behind Sheila's group, I came in with (did half the ride with) the faster half of our ride group.

This was an awesome ride, gorgeous weather, good company and I was feeling strong today. 13.5 average speed overall (with rest stops and hills)