Training camp weekend

Team Lucky U.S.

So, to catch up... Tom and I got together for our first official "team" training camp last weekend. All in all it was a success and showed us that we should be very compatible for the race!


Poor Tom though - all season he has been subjected to me rubbing in our beautiful California weather, and he shows up to the wettest weekend we have had all year!


It was so bad that his flight Thursday night was delayed by over two hours....


Friday morning we awoke to "showers" which gave us some optimism for a decent ride. We suited up with all the appropriate layers of GoreTex and started out for one of my epic long hilly routes. I took him up past the Golden Gate Bridge, over the fire roads of the Marin Headlands to Tennessee Valley... and all seemed to be going pretty well. We were even complaining of being "too warm" with so many layers on. I guess that is a good thing to learn - don't complain about being too warm when it is threatening to rain, because, on the ridge above Muir Beach it started to pour. Being early in the ride we were still optimistic - saying things like, "at least the rain is at our backs". I took him on up Mt Tam all the way to East Peak where if we were close to home we would have quit. By the top it was blowing a full gale and the rain was coming down in sheets - again our optimism spoke up trying to get us to believe it was only cause we were on the top of the mountain and it would get better as we went down the other side. At our little rest stop at East Peak we cussed the timing of the rain and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the shelter of the public restrooms...

Bah humbug...

To finish up that first ride we dropped over the North side of Tam down towards Alpine Lake. Contrary to our hopes, getting off the peak didn't help the weather. We basically got to a point where we could at least turn our bikes in a homeward direction which lifted our spirits a bit - that old horse heading for the barn syndrome. It was more or less a slog home in the pouring cold rain - no more complaining of being too warm. In the end we got in just over 4hrs of riding out of the 5 planned. In Tom's estimation it counted for more like 8 hrs in terms of suffering.

Food for two - we did some experimenting with what we can tolerate for 5hrs of riding... the PB&J's were great!

Tom gearing up for day two with the hair dryer...

Day two of the camp again started out with "showers". Our optimism had turn to skeptisim and it was a little harder to motivate. Heading out the door we had every intention of getting in the planned 5hrs of riding. Heading down the bike path towards Mill Valley all seemed ok until we felt a few sprinkles, then drops, and then by the time we actually hit the trails at the base of Mt. Tam, full blown rain. At least on Friday we had the first hour or so rain free.... this was going to be tough. We even tried to entice ourselves further away from home - to make sure we got in the time - with thoughts of hot coffee drinks in Fairfax. It didn't work. In the end we gave up - or you could say gave in to Tom's reasoning that 3hrs in the cold rain = at least 5hrs in the sun. So, day two was just over 3hrs.

Sunday was the last chance for a redeeming ride... luckily it all went well! Funny how overcast, cloudy, cool weather is so beautiful just because it isn't raining. Look at the smile on Tom's face in this next pic - it says it all.

A happy ending...

Sunday was a truly epic day! We did an amazing loop up and over Tam a couple of times, past Pine Mountain, through Fairfax - we had fire roads, single track, pavement, climbs, descents - it was awesome.... Amazing was how much our spirits were lifted with the rain gone. "If it had only been like this all weekend!" was spoken several times an hour.... 5hrs and over 50 miles seemed to fly by. We hope it feels this good in Africa!!!