Brian’s TNT 2006 Page

Once again, I’ve neglected my blogging duties for far too long. This time, I didn’t even really keep notes about the rides. Now it’s only 7 hours before I need to wake up to go to the airport for my trip to Tahoe, but I really wanted to get at least a little written down before the grand finale.

First of all, I mentioned a new bike computer that Iris got me for my birthday, but I don’t think I mentioned how cool it is. It’s got a heart rate monitor, GPS, and barometric altimeter built in, so ever since my birthday, I’ve got full GPS maps with all kinds of data saved. To see all the rides I’ve done, visit http://gunnbr.motionbased.com/. Be sure to check out the export to Google Earth from there. You can get some pretty good views of the routes and the climbing we’ve done.
So I’ll first get caught up on what little I remember of my rides:

April 29th, 2006

We rode from Kit Carson Park in Escondido to Fallbrook. This was my first ride after returning from Hawaii. Right now, I don’t remember much about this ride. I do remember that David told us to stand on the climb up Champagne Blvd, but only one of us (the other Brian) actually did so. From the bike computer data, I can see we rode 77 miles that day. That’s all I remember for now.

May 6th, 2006

This week we rode mostly the same route as the previous week, but added a different section that took us on a really big climb. This ended up being another really crazy ride. Several members of the ACE group went on one of their insane rides (they do TONS of climbing!), but the ones who stayed behind rode with my ride group. We ended up with lots of people with different levels of ability and kept having sub-groups that split up and gathered together again at the turns. At one point, this ended up being a problem as the group in front (which I was in) knew a different route than the group behind us was planning to do. At one of the turns, we waited for a long time until I finally went back to see where the group behind us was at. After backtracking for about a mile and a half, I still didn’t see the other group, so I stopped and called David, but just got his voicemail and left a message. Then I rode back to the group I was with, but they were no longer where I had left them (this was really my fault because I didn’t tell them what I was doing). I also had no idea where I was or what the route was, but I did see another rider and decided to follow him. Right when I was close to catching this other rider, David called back and told me the way to go. At this point, I was way out in the the middle of nowhere and completely unfamiliar with the area. As I traveled along the route David told me, I noticed I had no cell phone service and the battery on my GPS was getting low. The road was a lot longer than I had expected and I started getting worried that I was completely lost would run out of water. Finally I made it to an area that matched what I was looking for and then called David to let me know where I was. I had ended up behind them as they went on the big climb and David came back to escort me up to the group. He met me right at the bottom of Couser Canyon–a 6 mile climb. Along this climb, I really started to feel bad. I remember thinking that riding just wasn’t for me and I really didn’t want to be doing it. David was feeling even worse, especially since he had to ride it twice, but we made it to the top, the raced down to meet part of our group at the bottom. Chad and one of the slower ACE guys had continued on, knowing that we’d catch up with them. So we continued on and finally stopped at a gas station at the bottom of Champagne because everyone was out of water. I really didn’t think I would make it up Champagne, but I ate a bunch of beef jerky and a snickers bar. David told us to take it slow up the hill but half way up, I was feeling really good and sped up to race Kim up the top. I wasn’t able to beat her, but I did finish right after her. Then we had a nice ride back to Kit Carson Park with a few more wrong turns and a few more flats we had to fix, but we all made it back safely after a 79 mile ride.

May 13th

After thinking about my last ride, I realized that my big problem was that I was distracted by everything else going on and wasn’t eating or drinking enough. So, the night before this ride, I made a conscious effort to eat a ton of Chinese food. This time we were meeting in Poway, so I got to take surface streets to get to the meeting area. This took me right past a bagel shop I knew of, so I stopped to get a full on bagel sandwich on my way. Then I paid attention to the clock and made sure to eat something every 20 minutes, so I felt a lot better this ride. After around 70 miles, we rode up the inside of Torrey Pines which is shorter but a lot steeper than the outside route we had done before. Then we finished by going up Pomerado which was a long climb as well (check out the elevation graph on the MotionBased site!). I was fairly exhausted by the end, but made it though the 86 mile ride without too many problems.

May 20th

This week we did almost exactly the same route as last week. I did everything the same, including stopping at the bagel shop and watching the clock to remind me to eat. This ride ended up being 87 miles and I felt really good afterwards.

May 27th

This was our final training ride. Chad and Janel were part of a wedding in Boston and Kim was off doing something as well, so it was just David, Brian, and I riding together. We started again in Poway and were planning to just do a short (50 mile) ride. One of David’s fundraisers is making a DVD with pictures from our training and the final event, so we decided to ride up ahead of everyone, then stop and take their pictures as they rode by. After the last group passed, we’d ride up ahead of everyone again and stop to take pictures. Even with just the 3 of us, this ended up being a fun ride. It was nice to take it easy and it was great stop and relax, then chase down the other groups again. We ended up at Torrey Pines again and this time we rode up the inside twice. Brian and I also went down the inside which was pretty scary cause there’s a lot of turns and it’s easy to gain too much speed and lose control. We did manage to make it back to Poway safely at a really early 1:00 and then had our final prep. I was really sad leaving the park after our meeting was over. I knew that was our last training ride together and I’ve really gotten close to the people I’ve been riding with.

June 1st

Two days ago, all of our bike got loaded onto a truck to be taken to Tahoe. Although I haven’t mentioned it, I’ve been riding 2 - 3 times per week other than the Saturday rides, but this week, I wasn’t able to ride at all. Tomorrow at 7:50 am, we board a plane to leave for the ride. All day I’ve been really excited, a little nervous and still a little sad that it’s all coming to an end. I probably won’t sleep much tonight, but I should at least try (if I go to be now, I can still get in 6 hours before I need to get up). All I can say right now is that even if the final ride is horrible, it doesn’t matter. The journey has been incredible! I’ve learned a lot about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’ve made new friends and discovered that I really like to ride.

That’s all for now. I’ll post a final ride report and pictures next week!

I admit it–I’m a really lame blogger.  I think my main problem is that I’m a perfectionist.  I want each entry to be entertaining for everyone to read without going into too much detail to bore people.  So, I end up starting entries each week and writing at least an outline of the major events I want to blog about, figuring I can finish it and make it interesting later.  That technique isn’t so much working.  It probably takes me a couple hours to finish a single entry that way and I’ve been riding so much that I don’t have evenings and weekends free to sit and blog.

But we did just take a vacation to Hawaii so I had some time off from everything.  I brought my laptop with and was able to at least able to flesh out the rides I had done so far.  I’m still not comfortable with what I’ve written.  Some of the entries I think are too long and boring.  Others I think are too short.  But, I can’t keep putting this off forever, so I’m going to post all the entries I have so far.  As I mentioned, these were all started at the times that they happened, but the blogging software will put today’s date on all of them.  I’ll put the date that the ride occured on each of them so you the reader don’t get confused.  I’m also going to post this message at the beginning and end of this block of posts so people who start from the oldest or most recent will get to read this.

On Saturday, we had our bike fit check.  We met with all our coaches and mentors at Mission Bay and went between different stations to learn about nutrition, what kinds of clothes to wear, and how to change a flat tire.  More importantly we had a bicycle technician check our bikes to make sure they were in safe condition and adjusted our bikes to make sure they fit us properly.  I had my seat raised and moved back, then found that my stem needed to be shorter to move the handlerbars farther back.  One of the guys showed me that my bike will do a half shift so if the front derailleur is rubbing on the chain, I can do a half shift and stop that from happening.  I really don’t understand why the bikes don’t come with manuals to explain this kind of thing.  And finally, I found out that my gears were even higher than I was originally told.  The bike shop told me my rear gearset was a 12-25 (that’s the range of the number of teeth on the gears).  When I was talking to one of the coaches before I bought the bike, she told me that was okay, but said I’d probably appreciate a 12-27 (so the lowest gear would be easier).  The guys at the weekend check counted and found that I had only a 12-23, so my easiest gear was even harder than I had thought.

So after the clinic on Saturday, I took my bike back to the shop and had them swap the gearset and bring the handlebars closer.  I rode my bike home from there the next day, but I haven’t gotten to really take it out for a ride yet.  I admit to slacking off and spending the day preparing for and watching the Superbowl.  I also slept in late this morning, so I won’t get to ride until Wednesday.    I can’t wait to see how the bike feels and performs after all these changes!

After my ride this morning, I am a little more nervous about this whole thing. I spent a lot more time climbing in my lowest gear than I would have liked. I was able to keep my cadence at 70 the whole time, but if the hills get any steeper, I’m in trouble! I don’t really understand how the whole riding as a group thing works. I noticed my speed varies quite a bit over the course of a ride. I don’t understand what happens when someone (like for instance ME) gets tired half way through a ride. Well, tomorrow is our “bike expo” where we get to have our bikes inspected and get a bunch of information, including our training schedule. Hopefully I’ll know a little more then. I probably won’t figure out the answer to any of these kinds of concerns for at least another week until we go on our first real training ride though.

It also occured to me this morning that I’m really going to have to change my sleeping habits. Ever since I started riding my bike in the morning before work, I’ve been getting up early every day. By the weekend, I’m pretty worn out and finally catch up on sleep on Saturday. Well, now I’ve got training Saturday mornings at 7:30, so Saturday will be my earliest wakeup time of the week. I’ll definitely have to figure out a way to get some extra sleep so I’m relatively energetic Saturday mornings!

Already in just a couple days of fund raising, I’ve had several people tell me about people they know who has or had cancer.  If you would like me to ride in honor of someone, please send me a picture and information and I’ll find a way to display it.  For the breast cancer walks, people printed tshirts and wore buttons on their shirts or hats.  Since I’m riding a bike, I need to wear quick dry jerseys and a helmet, so those ideas may not work.  I’ll look into getting stickers printed to put on my helmet or bike.  I’ll figure something out.

Tonight I went to the Team In Training kickoff party.  It was a pretty crazy event.  There were a lot more people there than I expected and lots of vendors.  I got my first TNT shirt–a nice quick dry shirt that I can wear while riding.  After wandering around for a while, I found the cycle team and met several of the mentors and teammates, one of the coaches, and our honored participant.
It was a little strange being at an event like this other than the Breast Cancer 3-Days that I normally do.  (Don’t worry, I’m still crewing the Breast Cancer walk in November too!)  Can’t quite put my finger on it yet, but there was a different vibe.
Anyway, now that I’ve talked to people about the training and what we’re going to do, I’m even more excited about getting started.  I certainly have a lot to learn!  One thing I did learn tonight is this:  GO TEAM!

Here it is–my first official blog entry.  I never thought I’d actually start a blog since I’ve never really had anything interesting to say.  But, now that I’ve joined Team In Training, this seems like a perfect way to keep everyone up to date with my training progress.

Now that I have set up a blog, I have to say this is way easier than my normal way of maintaining a web page by editing HTML by hand.  I’m sure I’ll be playing around with this page to make it look better and have all the elements I want to show, so check back often for updates.