Costanoa: 2 Day Training Ride

This weekend my coach had planned a 2 day group ride. The goal of the ride was climbing practice. I was more than a little apprehensive about this. I knew I would be do the long ride that had SERIOUS climbing with SERIOUS bad ass riders. I also knew I would be last and making them wait all day long. To be honest, knowing that ahead of time made it a little easier. I actually was pretty proud of myself for keeping a couple riders in sight for most of the day.

You take your victories where you can get them.

Day 1: (disclaimer: My pictures suck and there are precious few of them. I was a little busy all day trying to stuff my lungs back into my chest and hoping my quads were not going to spontaneously combust. I did steal some pictures from my coach's site.)


The ride left from Santa Cruz and then headed up to the top of the Santa Cruz mountains. Yes, MOUNTAINS not hills. Across Skyline, down Alpine then back down to Pescadero and over to the campgrounds on Hwy 1 by Ano Nuevo. (I don't know how to make the tilde (~) over the 'n' in Ano. I apologize.)

Picture my coach took on Hwy 9. Thank God I wore my Camelbak. I would have not been able to drink on those climbs!

For those of you that are not from Northern California, and have no idea what I am talking about, here is what all that means: HUGE LONG climb, screaming/scary downhill, another BIG climb, wind tunnel by ocean, done.

Christ.

And a visual

Elevation for the first day of this ride

A ball busting 6899 ft of climb. Hmm... we were all girls, so I guess that would that be a labia busting 6899 ft of climb (Unnecessary, RBR. Funny, but unnecessary. Again, I apologize.)

We did regroups about every 8 miles. Which was nice. At least I got to see everyone then. Yep, I was dead last into every regroup. Unfortunately, this means the minute I got there someone (in a perky, well rested, cheerleader voice) would say, "let's get going."

"But, but, I just got my fig newtons out. Can just I eat one?" I would whimper.

*click, click*
*click, click*

I would hear the sound of riders snapping into their clipless pedals. And we were off.

*sigh*

But I must say, in stark contrast to my experience with the tri team (This is the third time I have linked to that post. Think I am still bitter?), Anyhoo... today I was well taken care of and supported throughout the ride. When I did finally arrive at each regroup site, I was treated like I had won the Tour du France and throughout the day I had several riding partners, including my coach, who provided lots of laughs and good conversation.

Only a true bad ass can pull off sparkly butterflies on her helmet. She probably rode three times what we did since she kept coming back to check on and encourage me.
Thanks coach! You rock!

Ok, 'conversations' is probably an overstatement. Most of these conversations were the other rider saying something interesting and/or clever and me grunting, in what I would hoped would be construed as, a suitable response.

Lying ass sign. Note that it says "summit". If it is a summit then you cannot go up higher, right? Alas, we turned out of the parking lot and UP another hill.

Here I tried to quickly snap a shot of the view, which was GORGEOUS throughout the ride, right after arriving to the regroup, but as you can see they are getting ready to head out so there was not much time to frame the shot. Does not even kind of do it justice.

The descent was scary! Beautiful, but scary. It was a steep narrow road and because the weather was GORGEOUS there were lots of cars and motorcycles on the road. Apparently, attempting to "enjoy the view" at 45 mph on a narrow switchback mountain road. Assholes.

Here is the entrance to the road were I was nearly made a hood ornament for a fast moving Mercedes that was cutting corners around blind curves and ended up and in my lane. I tell you what buddy, if you hit me you better make sure you kill me or you will find out what your scrotum tastes like.


The gal riding behind me (Yes, behind me! Big ass + downhill = momentum. And they said pie wouldn't make me faster! Ha!) said that she thought I was a goner and I let out a pitiful little yelp as it narrowly missed me.

Here is a picture my coach took of me moments after the near miss. Does this look like a road you drive 40 mph on?

We had one more big climb (steep, but not nearly as long as previous climbs) and then we stopped in Pescadero for a heavenly sandwich and much appreciated time with my ass off the bike. I actually got to rest a bit here because the one thing I do much faster than these people is eat!

From here it was only 12 miles to the Costanoa lodge where we were staying. We had some time to shower, relax and socialize and then had a big celebratory dinner. Lots of fun was had by all. I was honored to receive the "Git 'er Done" Award

My favorite model sporting my winner's gear!

Day 2:

Sunday morning was the ride down the coast, which can be glorious with a strong tailwind or absolute hell with a strong headwind. By some miracle, my bad weather ju ju did not follow me on this trip and we had a strong tailwind for the entire 30 mile trip back home.

Elevation profile from Sunday's ride

Here is me and Bad Ass Helen getting ready to head out on Sunday. I call her Bad ass Helen because she is amazing. Fast, strong, and at the same time humble, sweet, and amazingly supportive. She was my roomie for this trip and we had a blast.

Julia joined us for this part of the ride and was kind enough to hang with me. We had a great ride back and enjoyed a nice lunch by the pool afterwards.

These women were all hardcore triathletes. Most of whom have completed Ironman distance triathlons and I was honored, if a smidge underqualified, to be riding with them.