After spending 7 hours pruning fruit trees on Monday, Claire and I decided that we needed to get out and enjoy some sunshine on Tuesday.  We picked out a great loop leaving from Monte Rio.  We were leaving ourselves the option of heading over Joy Road after going through the town of Bodega, but decided against it after suffering up Bay Hill Road.  We both were very tired from the previous day, and I think that I was still recovering from my race on Saturday.  My average heart rate was only 124 with a high of 162.  During the 70 mile race on Saturday, my average heart rate had been 162.  If it wasn’t for the great company and the sunshine, I would have been suffering even more.  We did have a pretty good tail wind heading down the coast.

Well, I went out and did the second Grasshopper on Saturday.  It was nice and chilly, but I had dressed for it with my magic Cannondale Jacket and my big, blue gloves.  My feet were ice cold, but by the end of the ride I had gotten used to that.  It was definitely a smaller field than the first Grasshopper which I can only assume was from the very cold and slightly damp conditions.  Or maybe it was the description of the ride which listed a number of very steep climbs on it.  Anyway, having only one bike ride under my belt during the previous two weeks, I felt well rested and ready to go.

As we coasted down Bohemian Hwy., I was sitting nicely in the middle of the pack enjoying the gentle spray of ice cold water off of the tires in front of me.  The start of this race is definitely interesting in that you end up coasting quite a bit during the first couple of miles, or at least that is supposed to be what happens.  Luck was with me that morning and I managed to hit a giant pothole right at the town of Camp Meeker.  Both of my water bottles flew out of their cages and I felt like my front wheel was going to break in half.  I was able to exit the pack and cross the road to rummage through the underbrush for my bottles.  They were easily found, and my wheel was nice and straight.  Good old hand built wheels and 28mm tires.  The tricky part was that now I had to do a little chasing down the road.  Not what I had been planning, but definitely a nice warmer upper.  I caught the back of what I thought was the pack, but there had been a split in the middle, so I had to do a little effort to bridge the gap up to the front pack.  I don’t think it cost me much for the day, but I knew that I didn’t have a lot in my bank account for the race.  Most of the ride into Cazadero was pretty uneventful from their.

When we hit our first climb up Fort Ross Road, I bid the front pack a fond farewell, and let myself drift backwards at my own pace up the climb.  It was going to be a long, long day, and I knew that I needed to save something up for the latter part of the race.  I got sprinkled on a tiny bit as we climbed Fort Ross Road, but not enough to make me too wet, just enough to keep the road wet.  The drop down Meyer’s Grade was a little less fun than usual because of the wet roads, but still quite a scream.

From Hwy. 1 (the PCH for A1), we turned up Willow Creek which, as I have mentioned many times, is one of the best climbs in the county.  The road was wet and muddy and bumpy and what more could you ask for it a climb.  Oh, yea, there are no cars on the road.  I had a tiny bit of cramping happening on the steeper sections of Willow Creek, but nothing too bad.  I grabbed some GU and water at the top and made a right hand turn onto Coleman Valley Road.  I was surprised that I had no inclinations to turn left, which would have dropped me right down to the Hub Bus.

The rest of the “race” was just a survival sort of ride.  My plan of pacing myself over the first couple of climbs seemed to be paying off as I caught and passed some folks as they were trying to work cramps out of their legs.  The climb over Bay Hill Road went well with no cramping.  The final climb, Joy Road, was the butt kicker.  I was with a group of around 5 guys when we hit the bottom of the climb and as both of my thighs cramped, I figured that I would just get dropped off, but they were in the same boat, and we all stayed pretty much together.  I do wish that I had a little easier gearing on climbs like that, or maybe that I had eaten less cupcakes.

Here is a link to the course.

I got the chance to go out and do my favorite loop yesterday.  It was a nice, drizzly day with some decent rain by the end of the ride.  I was racing my best time from a couple of years ago, and was 50 feet ahead when I hit the entrance to Willow Creek State Park.  But, alas, that entrance had been fenced off, so I had to drop down Willow Creek Road until I found another entrance.  It ended up being some nice singletrack up the side of the hill.  That part ended up sending me off course, so the race was over.  The new route was a nice addition to the ride and I am looking forward to doing this loop in the future.

We have been down in Belen, NM for a couple of days visiting my grandparents.  They just celebrated their 77th wedding anniversary and they are both 97 years old.  I was able to get out on a couple of runs while we were here.  The first run was 7.5 miles and I just found a flat, dirt road that headed out into the desert.  It was below freezing out there and I was in my shorts and a long sleeve running shirt.  It was all fine and dandy until I turned around at the half way point.  At that point I realized that I had been running with a nice tailwind at my back.  The run back home was cold and a little slower.  I got some pretty funny looks from some of the locals as I ran down the road.  One guy in a giant bulldozer went  by shaking his head pretty good.  I don’t think I blamed him.  The second run was a 10 miler which was much more imaginative.  I ran down to a drainage road for quite a while before hitting the Rio Grande River.  I then ran up the river until I couldn’t go any further because it was blocked my bushes and the such.  I felt great on both runs except for being a little cold by the ends.

We drove up to Donner Lake on Saturday night for a day of cross country skiing on Sunday.  We were very, very lucky with the weather since it hadn’t snowed in weeks and things were looking bleak, but we got 8 inches of snow Saturday night and had a perfect day of skiing.  I chose to skate while Claire, Greg, and Cheri strided.  Here is a link to my skating.

The next morning, Monday,  Claire and I got up at 4:30 in the morning and drove back to Sonoma County for A1’s birthday ride.  Aaron had chosen a loop over Sweetwater and up to the top of Mill Creek Road and back.  It ended up being around 52 miles long with plenty of climbing.  We started the ride with 8 people and ended up climbing Mill Creek with 6 people.   For those of you who haven’t climbed Mill Creek, it is a dead end road that climbs up around 10 miles from Westside Road outside of Healdsburg.  For the most part the climb is pretty gradual until the final mile or so.  This part is referred  to as “The Ladder” and pitches upwards at over 20% for most of it.  I had only been to the top once before, and most of the others hadn’t been up there before.  It was definitely a grunt at the end.