Monday, April 20, 2009

60 Mile Bike Ride...and guess what....MORE FREAKIN' HILLS!

Saturday March 21, 2009:

60 MILE BIKE RIDE!!!

Today was our longest bike ride of the season. It seems like every week I am saying this phrase…haha. Today we tackled 60 miles through what seemed like all of the West Los Angeles Mountains. We biked a hilly course starting in Calabasas, over the Santa Monica Mountains National Rec Area, down to PCH in Malibu, and back over the mountains to Calabasas. Our coaches informed us after the ride that we had climbed over 6,000 FEET...three times what we climbed last week! WOW! I can say that it definitely felt like it. Other than the first 3 or 4 miles, there were absolutely no flat parts to this course. Either you were steadily climbing some huge ass hill or you were cruising down the hill you had just conquered. It was up and down up and down for nearly four and half hours.

I can honestly say without question THIS was the toughest training session of the entire season for me. I have never felt so depleted, exhausted and spent after any practice. The weather was not a help either. It was very cold and misty through most of the course. Towards the end, it was sprinkling light rain which made the roads very slick. Rain and downhills do not equal a good combination. Some people on my team LOVE LOVE LOVE zooming down hills and trying to reach new record high speeds. Me…I’m not there yet because I value the teeth in my mouth and all the limbs on my body. Downhills are scary to me and I feel like it just takes one split second of losing concentration and you can easily have a spill and fall off. No thank you. I will go a little slower to stay safe rather than try to play Lance Armstrong. My Garmin GPS showed I hit a high of 39 mph on this afternoon. Imagine what that could have been if I wasn’t slowing down during those downhills. CRAZY!

Picture below shows me zooming down the back of Mulholland Drive with my buddy Matt "MuthaF*cking" Sills...the baddest white boy I know. The boy can FLOW!

1 comment:

Matt said...

Thanks for the shout-out, Los! Riding's a lot more fun when I get to do it with someone as awesome as you.