Unlucky week 13 in Malibu

This week we are once again rained out. I'm not feeling too bad about it because I have to work overtime today anyway, and there is a possibility that it will be sunny tomorrow. I hate missing a weekend practice this close to our event, so I am hoping for good weather tomorrow so I don't lose any of the momentum that I have built up.

As for last Saturday, we had a rather unlucky week 13. Everything seemed to start off beautifully (as things normally do when you're in Malibu). The weather was warm and sunny, I was hyped up on instant espresso, and our first 15 miles seemed to fly by. Our team usually splits into three or four groups based on how fast we typically ride. There are those who like to pretend they're in the Tour de France, and then there's me and my usual 13-16mph, with pretty slow uphill climbs.

At around mile 15 we experienced our first unlucky moment of the day. I was a little alarmed to see that Julia, John and Greg, who had passed us sometime earlier, were camped out on the shoulder of the highway. Apparently Julia had taken a bit of a tumble off of her bike, though thankfully she was not seriously hurt. She decided to take it easy and head home, so John biked back to Malibu Bluffs to get the car. A few miles later we stopped again as Brad began having trouble with his back tire. We re-inflated it, and then continued up and down hills and around rocky outcroppings until we reached the farmland beyond Point Mugu.

Along the route we saw a lot of other TNT bikers getting ready for upcoming triathlons. I saw several of my work colleagues out for 28 miles of biking followed by some running. It felt great to cheer each other on. Go team!

From there we avoided getting on the freeway (something that I have discovered can be surprisingly easy to do...) and met up with Coach Dave. We then turned back and retraced our ride until mile 36, where Greg rejoined the group and told use that Julia and John were doing fine and on their way home. Dave decided to take it easy on the route planning that week, and told us that we could take an 'optional' trek up Mulholland, effectively reversing our mountainous climb of the previous Malibu ride.

He let us know that if we really wanted to, we could skip the turn into the mountains and just keep going down the PCH. It would be a perfectly respectable thing to do. Maybe I'm really getting into biking, or maybe it was the space aged foil wrapped pack of "Espresso Love 2x caffeine" sports frosting that I has just eaten, so I said why not? Let's take the long route home.

See the little blue car down there? Tiny, right? That's where I had just biked from.

And so, we turned up Mulholland, and I just accepted that it was probably going to be tough and slow for the next hour or so. I think it helped that the hill was entirely optional, somehow making it easier to mentally process the task ahead. (As if there is someone out there forcing me to do any of this.) About half way up the hill Brad began having knee pain, a pretty common repetitive stress problem in a sport like biking. So he and Doug made the decision to turn around and go back to the PCH.

See how happy I am? I think that's the caffeine.

Going uphill for extended periods of time is really not that bad when you're out with a group of friends chugging your way through absolutely stunning scenery and sunshine. The biggest problem seemed to be avoiding crazed speeding motorcyclists who were out there for the same scenery and sunshine. At one point coach Dave asked me and Greg if we thought motorcycling looked like it was "Really fun or really stupid." I replied that the motorcyclists were probably thinking the same thing about us, we were after all biking up a ridiculously long hill when we had perfectly good motorized options for getting to the top.


But making it to the top on your own is pretty glorious and immensely satisfying.

Riding downhill back to the PCH is as always a blast. As we headed effortlessly down I kept catching glimpses of where the ocean meets the sky and blends into the same color blue. Yeah, the exhilaration and endorphins made me want break out into effusive descriptions of the scenery, but I'll spare you all of that and just say that it was darn pretty.

Dave, Greg and I made it back to the PCH at last, and those final ten miles to the park really flew by. However right before we reached the last big hills of the ride, the three of us came upon Doug and Brad, once again on the side of the road. They were working to fix the flat that had been bothering Brad all day. Dave told us that Rogelio had also experienced a flat earlier in the morning, making for a rather problem filled ride for all of us. From that point on however we all made it safely back to the park, and I returned home for a much needed afternoon relaxing on the couch. I also made some guilt free chocolate chip cookies to celebrate the 61.2 mile ride.