Well, I did it! I completed my first bike race! I got up to Lake Tahoe 2 days early to acclimate to the elevation. I stayed in S. Lake with a few friends Saturday night as our race started Sunday at 6:30am! I hadn't quite expected it to be 45degrees so I was a little under dressed... oops! It took about 12 miles to warm up. I felt pretty prepared as I'd ridden about 55 miles of the Lake in order to prepare. The trek up up Emerald Bay was just tough as I'd remembered it. I passed the first sag stop in order to keep moving. I decided to stop at the rest stop at Homewood as it had been about 25 miles and I needed a water refill! I definitely kept getting passed by lots of friendly cyclists! I guess I stood out with my pink biking outfit and bike. I figured if I can't win, I may as well be stylish! By the time I got to Tahoe City, I was cruising! The road out of Tahoe City was being worked on so we detoured onto the bike path which was actually hillier than the road. No fair! I flew down the hill after Dollar Point and slowly but surely made my way toward Kings Beach for the next water stop. I guess I wasn't paying very close attention and blew through it! Oops! We took the more scenic route through Incline Village and I realized where all of the ginormous houses were! At that point, I decided I needed to take my own stop in order to choak down some GU. I haven't found anything else I can unfortunately eat on the ride! The next couple of miles were gorgegous along the East Shore! Then, the next 7 miles were nearly the toughest: Spooner Summit! 7 miles of 1000 feet of climbing! I was thrilled when that leg was over and took off down hill getting up to about 39MPH! I spoke too soon! The last 6 miles of the race was the toughest! My legs were tired but I knew that I was almost through. All in all, I had a great ride: 4 hours and 35 minutes of riding with 2 rest stops adding about 10 minutes.
I think I was in decent shape for this race but will need to keep up my training so I can add on 28 more miles...totally 100! Eek!
This was a great training race for my full century ride in November, training with TNT. Please take a moment to donate HERE, any amount is great appreciated! I am SO close to my minimum goal (with the help of Google's matching!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment