So that week, I got back in the zone. I had great trainer sessions at home. I hit the pool hard with the group on Thursday and I mapped out my course on Friday for my 90 miler with crazy climbs.
Saturday morning, I was up and I was ready. I loaded my bike and head out from my house in West Hollywood. I do enjoy coming straight from my house, because i don't have to load my car up and freak out that I may have forgotten something. But to be fair, the ride down Wilshire to PCH is not very safe nor are the roads very smooth, so I won't be doing that again.
So here I am making my way through town, up PCH and past Zuma and I reach Encinal Canyon for my first climb. It is about 5mi -6mi of long switchbacks. It is not terrible, but it is not exactly "fun" either. LOL. And this day is it was raining... or is should say "misting" so it was really annoying to see and was actually quite cold.
It was a challenging first 60miles... I was psyched when I made it to the top. I had never done it before. I know, every post i talk about my first of everything, LOL. But it was quite the accomplishment.
As I continued on my way, I did hit a bit of a wall. Not that I was tired, I was a little bored. After semi listening to music on my 90 miler to Santa Barbara, I told myself no music, because there is no music on the race, so despite having the ear phones handy, I didn't listen. It was hard and the hard part is trying to come up with one-sided conversations with yourself. :-)
After about 70miles or so, I was a tad lost. I thought I was suppose to loop right around to Old Topanga from Mulholland, but somehow I either missed the turned or didn't get to it. Either way, I modified my route to go through valley.
As I hopped on the bike paths somewhere deep in the valley in Van Nuys or somewhere, I realized that I was now riding on flat paths and I still had climbing that I was suppose to do. Granted, at this point, I had no idea how much i had climbed, but i didn't want to come up short. So I told myself I would bike Laurel Canyon home. WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!
mile 85 of a 90 mile bike ride, I decide to climb a super steep, winding, no bike path, crappy paved road == DUMB. It wasn't safe. At one point, since the road was so winding, I got off my bike and walked it up about a 1/8th of a mile ... just to get to a sidewalk for safety.. SUPER SCARY. As I hit the peak at Mulholland Drive, I road on my breaks the whole way down, dodging pot holes and divots. It was not a smart move... but I did it... and I got home alive and was able to knock that ride off my bucket list.
When I got home, I committed to running 30min or 3miles, which ever came first, because of my knee... i did about 2.5mi... All in all.. AWESOME RIDE!! WAHOO!! oh.. and did I mention that I did OVER 8000 Feet of climbing!?? BOOM! :-)
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