Marina del Rey Loop-25 Miles

Here's everybody at the top of the hill near the end of our ride.

Last Saturday we met at Playa del Rey Lagoon Park to begin our 25 mile loop around the Marina. This was my first occasion using a route map, and it was nice to get used to it on my home turf. I bike around the Marina quite frequently. It's flat and very convenient to my house, and I love biking so close to the Pacific. The weather was lovely, though I'm glad we were out there early. The recent forest fires that have been raging north in Santa Barbara and south in Anaheim caused very smoky air in the city for the rest of the weekend. You can see the smoke in the distance over towards the Malibu mountains. By 2 that afternoon everything was grey and overcast.

The ride was great. We went down the Ballona Creek path for a couple of miles, and then looped around the Marina twice. I rode most of it with Audra and Doug. I was very excited to bike back into the parking lot where we started. I felt very accomplished...only to discover that we had four more miles to go! Up hill and into the wind! I was definitely struggling a bit near the end, but I made it to the top of the hill with a smile on my face. There's nothing quite like making it past the hard part and realizing you've really accomplished what you set out to do. Doug gave me a lot of advice on when I should be down shifting so I don't waste all my energy fighting wind or inclines. Usually I just keep my gears on one setting. I've never done endurance training before so I've never really had to worry about saving my strength and energy.

After making it back to our cars (again) we headed over to The Shack for the tastiest tuna sandwich and Corona I've had in a long time (I think at that point even my taste buds were tired). I also got a free TNT hat for raising over $250 in the first couple weeks. Thanks again to everyone who has donated, all of the support I've been getting is wonderful. I feel like I'm off to a great start so far and I hope to keep up this momentum.

Next week I will be baking pies to raise money at work, and we have a ride on Westchester Parkway, 30 miles.