Saturday, July 4,2009 – Independence Day! What a wonderful day to sleep in and spend time with the family…OR what a great day to get up early for a bike ride with the team! YAY! Ok, so in all fairness they did schedule the ride for 8:45 and it was only 10 min from my house – which was awesome! The only problem was that I got so excited about it being close by that I neglected to look at the start time. You guessed it! I showed up at the usual 7am excited about my extra ½ hour of sleep – since it was so close – but no one was there! A couple of panicked phone calls later and I realize that I am an hour early.
Once the ride actually gets going it is starting to warm up and is pushing 9am. We started at the VTA parking lot on Colman between Almaden and Winfield. We went down Almaden Exp. Then back up to Camden – total about 7 miles. There is that killer incline on Camden that was a good warm up for what was coming. We then turned left on Hicks and headed into the hills. When I saw Hicks on our rout sheet I must admit I was a bit nervous. It turns out that in comparison – Hicks really isn’t that bad. It was when we made that right turn on to Shannon that things got really interesting! Now, let me attempt to explain. This is a part of town that really few people see. It is part of the base of the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains and really if you don’t live here the only reason to go on this road is for the scenery. This is where you see full on mansions on large acreage. There are horses and plenty of road kill along the way to distract you from the excruciating pain emanating from your legs & lungs. This pain is caused when the beautiful rolling hills decide to stop rolling go straight up! Oh, but there are turns in the road too! So after each bend you see the one ahead and think that it must level out there only to find that it does no such thing! It just keeps getting steeper! This goes on for what seems like an eternity. I am truly getting a glimpse of what Hell must be like. I can’t breath, my legs are shaking, and my goal is to keep my bike from going backwards! Just one more curve – it must level out right up there! Oh @%$*! There is another curve and the road just got steeper! Ok, don’t hyperventilate. Deep breaths from your center. You can do this! Just one more turn and you are there. DENIED! It seemed like it went on forever but in reality it was probably the longest 1 ½ miles of my life. Finally I reached the top and was greeted by an old shady oak tree and one of our honorees. Yep, he beat me up the hill! He was having a nice break waiting for the rest of us. Just to put this in perspective, he used to be an avid cyclist before his Leukemia. He has since fought the good fight, had a bone marrow transplant and just doesn’t have the strength and energy that he used to have. Yep, HE beat me up the hill with time to spare. What the @%$* is MY excuse? After that killer climb came the great reward of the decent. I will admit that going down still scares me a bit, but I am getting better.
We dropped down into Los Gatos which was full of people getting ready for the parade. We were like the pre-show! Then we went up Hwy 9 to Saratoga. Now we did Hwy 9 last week and it wasn’t really that bad. It has some rolling inclines but they are more long and gradual. This time though I was still recovering from Shannon and Hicks! Looking ahead at our rout sheet I realize that we still have a bunch of miles to go and then loop back and go the OTHER way up Shannon and Hicks! Say What????? Um…Coach? I think we may have a problem! Thankfully Coach Don was cool about it and said we would see how I felt when we got there. Well, by the time we rode to Saratoga and back down Cox to Blossom Hill there was a unanimous decision by the group to skip that wonderful hill and go straight down Blossom Hill Road to Camden then over to the VTA. I was SO thankful. I really don’t know if my legs could have handled that again. I think I may have had to walk my bike for the first time! All together the ride was about 39 miles which is officially my longest ride to date! YAY!
Saturday night my family and I enjoyed the wonderful fire works in Morgan Hill. They were really amazing. We had a great time hanging out and playing games until it started to get dark. Then Samantha and I went out and sold glow sticks to raise money for TNT! That worked out really well. We made a bit of cash and got back to our blankets just in time to curl up and watch the show. It was truly a great day!
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