Sunday, March 31, 2013

Spring is here! Time to ride!

An unplanned stop at the Leschi Starbucks
Team Mang's last major ride was on Saturday, March 23, when we did a 60 mile loop from Renton to UW to Bothell, Woodinville, Redmond, Factoria and back - the typical Lake Washington loop.  It took us 6 hours, but that was because we had a full hour and a half of stops for water, bathroom, coffee.  That Subway stop at Marymoor really slowed us down - a full hour break.  Overall, though, the team did really well, riding an average of 12.5 mph, when you consider a riding time of 4.5 hours over 58 miles.
The weather held up for another week after that but most of the team missed out on spectacular weather over the Easter weekend due to other obligations. This coming weekend, April's first, promises to be a soggy one and once again, we are hindered from enjoying our iron steeds.  Oh, sun! When are you coming back?
Lunch break at Marymoor

Nevertheless,  the first major ride is coming up - the 60 mile Daffodil Classic from Orting to Eatonville and back.  The team did it last year but we didn't all finish strong. As a matter of fact, some of us didn't really enjoy it with its bumpy roads. It was early in the season and it was to be expected. But as with all our rides, the camaraderie kept us all going. This year, it seems like we're behind schedule - a week into April and some of us have barely ridden our steeds. Turns out, there are so many other things in life (who knew?). So we're taking every opportunity to condition our lungs and our legs.  The closer we get to summer, the harder it will be to start getting serious with training - specially for the one day ride.

So to all Team Mangers out there - let's get going!  After the Daffodil Classic, some of us are doing the Tulip Pedal in Mount Vernon - that's a flat 60 with more focus on the scenery than on the training. That's okay, as long as we're pedaling.  After that, all our rides will be either very hilly or over 50 miles - the Hills of South King County, the Enumclaw loop, the Puyallup/Fife loop, the 7 Hills of Kirkland, the May Day metric and before you know it - we'll be doing the hilly Peninsula metric (64 miles) less than a week before our first century ride - Flying Wheels.

Whew...just thinking about all of this tires me out...but we're shooting for it.