2008 Training Begins
My 2007 cycling season did not go quite the way I had hoped. My mileage and climbing were down from 2006. My accidents on the mountain bike threw me for a bit of loop, too. Finally, I injured my knee at the end of September. It was a tough year. On the plus side, I did complete 3 very hard double centuries, each with more than 10,000 feet of climbing.
I have some big plans for 2008. I want to complete 5 doubles, including Devil Mountain Double, the one that started this insanity in the first place. I’m going to follow the same training routine that I used in 2006. But this time I’m not going to let the ab/back workouts slide. I also need to keep on top of my yoga workouts, since that seems to help my injured knee stay limber. While it no longer hurts, it does get stiff.
I started off 2008 with a bang. I left our house at 8:45 with the intent of riding Morgan Territory and Mount Diablo, two of the climbs that are included in the Devil Mountain Double. The temperature was 38 degrees and it was foggy. I received two new wool jerseys for Christmas and I’ve been working out the kinks of what to wear under them to stay warm, but not overheat. Today I seemed to get the right combination. Every cyclist seems to have something that gets cold when they ride – necks, feet, face… In my case, it is my arms and my hands. When you first begin a ride, before your muscles have warmed up, it’s good to be a little cold. If you are hot when you start, you’ll end up overheating later. I was a little cold to start. But about five miles into the ride, I was feeling okay.
This ride starts off on some two lane country roads with no shoulder. I avoid them at commute time, but the traffic on New Year’s Day was negligible. I arrived at my first significant turn at 42 minutes. I knew this meant I was moving at a pretty good pace, close to my personal best for the ride to the summit of Morgan Territory. It was still foggy and I was really glad to have my new generator light that Thom got me for Christmas. About an hour into the ride the sun came out. Sunshine is just so much more cheery. I pulled over to the side of the road and got my sunglasses out. They promptly fogged up, as I knew they would. But I had deliberately stopped at the top of a little rise, so they would defog on the descent.
When I got to my next turn, I knew I was not going to have a Personal Best ride. Which is really okay, because I’m not exactly in Personal Best shape. But I knew I would be faster than the 2.5 hours I had estimated to Thom. At this point I was climbing Morgan Territory Rd. I love this road. The first five miles or so are very rolly and the pavement is pretty good. Eventually the road turns into this one lane, rutted mess, but it follows a creek, there is not much traffic and it is not a terribly steep climb at about 6% average grade. I reached the top at 2 hours 16 minutes, five minutes off my personal best of 2:11. It is only 25.6 miles from the house, but it almost all uphill. I’m pretty pleased with that since I have not done much riding since September.
The back side of Morgan Territory is one fast descent. Today it was windy and cold. I wish I had brought my camera because the wind was blowing the fog in tendrils across the road. I called Thom when I arrived at the bottom of Morgan Territory. He was going to drive over to Mount Diablo and ride up from the North Gate side to meet me at the Junction. We thought we would then continue on up to the Summit together. I knew I did not have the legs for the full 10 mile climb up Diablo and told Thom so.
I then had 14 miles of rollers to ride to get to the South Gate road to climb up Mount Diablo. I don’t really like this section of road. It’s often windy, it always seems like a lot of work to ride it and I’m never going as fast as I think I should be. I started off riding into the wind. It was so strong, I ended up riding in my small chainring. But then the wind shifted and I had a great tailwind. Another wind shift – and I was in the small ring again. I was happy when I got to the good pavement in Danville. It’s amazing what a difference pavement makes.
By the time I got to the South Gate Road, I was pretty fried. I knew I would just be slogging it up to the Junction. But I slogged away and got there about about five minutes after Thom did. My friend Kim was there also, which was cool. The three of us went down the North Gate with Thom flying off the front. Kim and I got to chat and that was pleasant.
So, the New Year started off with a good ride.
59.7 miles
4961 feet of elevation gain
12.2 average speed