March 18th - Our Seventh Ride:

March 25th - Our Eighth Ride:This ride was "drills" at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena .  We didn't really count mileage but instead worked on our technique.  I didn't get much of a work out, for once, but there was some excitement... in a bad way (frown).  Our close friend M.J. had a bad spill and had to go to the hospital for stitches and his road rash, of which there was a lot.  Our fellow team member that he crashed with is Dan, who fractured his arm when he want head over handle bars.  After the ride we went to the Pasadena hospital that they had taken M.J. to, in order to bring him his clothes, give him a lift home, and do anything else we could to take care of him. 

April  1st - Our Ninth Ride: 52 miles - This was a feel-good ride for me; ...

we conquered a bunch of hills, and got to the over-half-way mark as far as mileage.  SAG (support and gear) is always great, but this time our pace group (the Fun group!) had extra fun SAG; Irma, who is one of our group mates, asked her husband Tom to SAG, and since M.J. was still on the mend he came out to give us support and SAG for us as well.  Drew had a challenging day due to some pain we've now isolated as hip-flexor related.  The guys down at our favorite bike shop, Bicycle John's in Burbank, offered Drew some suggested stretches and exercises to help him avoid those pains in the future.  The picture above shows us at one of the SAG stops.

April 8th - Our Tenth Ride: 50 miles -  Today we were supposed to do 55 miles but the route map was calculated as longer than reality... that was fine because, as always, I had my butt kicked by another tough ride.  We did some steep hills, and my bike was giving me more problems.  Between my own slowness when it comes to climbing hills and my inability to keep my bike working as I think it should I can get pretty frustrated at times.  This ride upset me with all these frustrations.  It's hard to be the slowest one in the group at times, knowing folks are waiting on me is tough - I just have to remind myself that this is not a race and that I'm accomplishing a great deal for a worthwhile cause, and not to beat any clocks.  Despite a very trying day's ride, I'm heading out tomorrow!

April 15th - Our Eleventh Ride: Wow, 72 miles today! 

This was my first time ride with my LOOK clipless pedals.  I had trained on the previous Sunday and Tuesday with them so I was not completely unfamiliar with them, but it was my first chance to try them out on our now infamous hill climbing... it had it's challenges.  When the ride was over and we were back at our vehicles my mentor Deborah was enthusiastic to see me feeling as good as I did.  She said that we've now experienced all we need to prepare ourselves for Tahoe; we've done all the elevation and mastered hills (I call them mountains!) that are comparable to those we'll have to climb during the event.  This is heartening for Drew as well as myself, but I'm still worried about one aspect of the event.  When I do, occasionally (and even less frequently in the future I hope) have to stop on these long inclines, starting up again is really difficult, more so with the clipless pedals than with the traditional style... If the hill is steep I'm very wobbly and have to start out pedaling perpendicular to the road and then switchback onto my path... I'm worried that during the event there will be enough other riders that this zigzag technique won't be safe - that I'd get in the way!  Well hopefully by that point stopping to rest will no longer be a necessity.  My bike is still acting up so I'll have to have it looked at this week before next Saturday's ride.  Here's hoping the shop can get all the kinks worked out!

April 22nd - Our Twelfth Ride:  76 Scenic miles throughArcadia, Azusa, San Bernardino, Pomona, Irwindale, (ie, all over the San Gabriel valley) was our ride yesterday.  I started the morning off feeling somewhat nauseated, Drew and I both did... we weren't sure as to why.  But this made me extra glad to hear that the day would be rather light as far as hill climbing went.  And it was, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and a huge hill to stand before me, commanding to be climbed.  Nope no such hill occurred... again, I was not sorry for this; between the raising of my seat that Desiree did last Saturday and the raising that Sandra did to it when I had it fitted this previous Thursday, my seat had been raised over 2 inches (and in cycling that is A LOT).  That meant that on this ride my challenge was my starts... it's rather hard to explain but it made me wobbly because I could no longer take-off from starts while seated on my bike.  I knew I was going to have to raise my seat eventually, and that it was too low, but learning this trick of starting un-seated wasn't something I wanted to do while adjust to a different change to my bike, like for example while adjusting to the clipless pedals.  But as you can imagine, if you're going to be wobbly at your starts, you REALLY don't want to have to start back-up again going up a hill, especially with how difficult it has been for me already (see last entry).  Towards the end of the ride we had many miles of very subtle downhill riding... enough of a downhill that I needed to be ready to hit my breaks pretty much the whole time, this caused some problems.  I've continued writing this entry on Monday and today I still have some numbness in my right hand's ring and baby fingers, there is a muscle cramping and when it does those fingers go numb for awhile.  Drew bought me some new gloves yesterday at Bicycle John's that have more gel padding than my others and hopefully they will keep this from happening again.  I noticed the numbness on the ride and tried shaking my hands and flexing my fingers to gain feeling back, and I'm sure it helped but it just wasn't enough?  Within the last 5 miles of the ride coaches Lou and Ramon challenged some of us to a sprint, we kept a pretty fast pace up for at least 2 of the 5 miles, I was definitely up for it because I wasn't tired at all due to not having to climb any hills!  It felt great to really push myself, and I'm sure glad no cars did anything dumb like try to back into us while we were going so fast.  Drew was tired but the competitor in him kept him from getting left in the dust and he actually lead us (while I was comfortable going at speed, I was not comfortable passing anyone at it - especially not Drew, hahaha).  Well as the mileage has gotten longer so have my post, enough of this one!

April 29nd - Our Thirteenth Ride: (Milage: 46       Location: Valencia/Santa Clarita)

It's been almost a week since our last training day and I haven't updated.  You may be wondering why.  Well I, Amanda, wasn't able to take part in last week's training.  I injured my leg while working out with a personal trainer at my fitness club.  I'm new to getting personal training sessions and apparently the trainer and I pushed my muscles a little too hard.  My right leg's calf muscle was knotted up good and I wasn't able to walk without pain, and I thought cycling was the last thing the muscle needed to heal.  Drew did go on the training ride and he says I would have "kicked butt" had I been up to doing it.  Well I'm not sure how much butt I ever kick, our rides are always a challenge!  This ride was only 46 miles, but more than half of that was hill climbing.  I did get to see the whole path that was ridden, via car, thanks to our honored teammate Elysse.  She, I, and TNT alumni Katrina, all went to drive the path and make sure SAG had a bike tire pump. The road they took was absolutely beautiful.  I may try to convince my folks to consider Santa Clarita as a retirement location!  It looked like a TOUGH ride, but Drew came through with flying colors.  His complaints were not about the ride, but rather his back and feet hurt afterwards... he is off getting his bike fitted as I type, as a matter-of-fact, I am really hoping that the proper fitting will help his back pain.  I am not an expert, but from what I've learned I'd say his reach is too far, ie. his handle bars are too far away, making him reach to far to grasp them, and not allowing him to keep a more straight back, etc.  I'm a little concerned that not having done last week's training and not being ready to get back onto the bike until last night has made me lose my edge and that this coming week's 80 miler is going to be that much tougher.. but çe la vie, what can I do but my best!

I hope you'll visit our web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see the progress we've made. Thanks for your support!