60 Hilly Miles

Today was group ride day for the Jill Fry Tri Team. That meant gathering in the pre-dawn hours (6:45 am to be exact, man the days are getting shorter already!!) in the Red-Apple parking lot, to begin a 2.5 - 4 hour ride. It was downright frigid this morning - the thermometer in the car read 47, and while in real degrees it was only a few notches colder than last week, even Doug agreed it FELT a WHOLE lot colder.

Starting with a long downhill to the trail, which was ensconced in fog, did nothing to warm us up. Like last week, I was almost begging for a hill to ride up, just so I could feel my fingers again. I think Jill plans it this way - it's her secret method to make us LOVE the hills.

So this week was a new experience for me, as it was over halfway through the ride last week when Jill discovered that my bike has a triple chain ring, and henceforth forbid me from riding in my granny gear. So today's ride was all about riding all the hills in my middle ring, and the flats in my big ring.

All in all, I was really pleased with how the ride went. The first 2.5 hours (@ 27 miles) was good, and aside from the cold, I didn't have any troubles. Jill took us on a slight detour to take a look at the 40th hill repeats hill, and then up an extra hill on 20th just for good measure. That one really hurt, but I did it, and made it back to the Red Apple parking lot. There we left Doug & Jessi, who were done for the day, and Jason, Jill and I continued on our ride. Jill wanted to ride longer, and Jason and I both had a long ride on the books, owing to our impending 1/2 Ironman.

So, it was down to Kirkland, and then up Juanita hill. Jill had to peel off at the fire station, as she needed to get back for her son's football game, but not before she told us about the route she was going to ride. This is where things got interesting...

At Jill's "recommendation" (though she did say, "it's really hard" - boy, she wasn't kidding!), we took a left at the fire station on Holmes Pt. Road. This took us on a nice little downhill recovery and along the water for a little bit. Pretty views. Then came the hard part - a long, twisting, ugly climb back up to Juanita - where it spit us out at the top of the hill. Not before chewing on us both for a while, however. I refused, however, to drop out of my middle ring - even though I really wanted to. I'm not sure it would have really done much good, frankly - this hill was going to be a mother, no matter what. This is building mental toughness, I kept telling myself. At least we got props from the team rider doing hill repeats on Juanita while we waited at the light - "you guys did the HARD hill" - no kidding.

So of course, this wasn't the end. We rode down Juanita & jumped on the Burke Gilman trail. We had options at this point - cruise back in to Redmond on the trail, or do Norway Hill again (the 2nd hill of our earlier loop) and then follow the same route back to the Red Apple. Now while we were riding Holmes Pt. Road, I was thinking, "I don't need to do Norway Hill again.." but once I was on the downhill, all that went away, and (forgetting how painful Norway Hill was the first time) I thought, "what the heck, let's do Norway. I'll probably regret this, but what the hey".

So off to Norway we went. And it hurt. ALOT. But I made it. In my middle ring. Wahoo!

Well, both Jason and I decided after this that we definitely DIDN'T need to do the long climb up 70th from the trail. So rather than taking the normal route back from Norway, we got over the freeway, and then cruised down 132nd to 124th. Then we took 124th straight south back to 70th, and the Red Apple. Of course, this was not without climbing either, but we made it.

By the time we got back to the car, we'd been on the bikes for 5:01 total (that included all our pit stops / talking time. It really amounted to 4 hours of ride time) for 60 miles. 60 really hilly miles. It was good.

We were supposed to then run an hour, but after all that climbing, I didn't quite have the mental toughness for that. And it was noon already, and we really needed to get back to the dogs. But I am pleased with my accomplishments for today: I rode every hill in my middle cog, and all the flats in my big cog. And I don't entirely feel like I'm going to die.

I'll save that for tomorrow after the 10K.