Saturday Morning – Diablo Junction and part of South Gate Road, 30 miles

Rick e-mailed me yesterday and said he’d reached his intermediate weight goal of 155 lbs and he was putting on his Campy Neutron race wheels so I knew he would be going for a PB. JB told me he had a wedding to go to so he would only be doing a quick Junction ride. Nicole had final exams so she wouldn’t be riding. I took another look at the sidewall cut in my tire and decided I needed to replace it. I had a red and black 23mm Michelin HighLite Prestige in my box of bike stuff so I put that on last night too. Looks a little odd with red front tire and purple rear, but oh well.

I had the Tour de France on TV and as I was leaving Lance and Jan were exactly even at the first split. I would have to wait until after the ride to see what happened. I didn’t do anything special to prepare for Rick’s assault on the mountain but I just had some coffee and a bottle of Accelerade instead of breakfast. I felt good but not really amped up for a sub-40 attempt.

At the gate I met a nice woman with a black Cannondale who was waiting for a friend. She asked me if Klein bikes were popular with triathletes and I said I didn’t think so because they’re not aero enough but that the people who like Kleins are pretty much the same people who like Cannondales. Rick showed up shortly and we waited around for JB but left without him at a few minutes after 8. It was the best weather for riding that we’ve had in months – cool and calm.

I took off with a strong start to give Rick a good rabbit to chase, hoping to stay ahead until the Upper Washout of so, but he caught and passed me well before the bump. When I did get to the Upper Washout I checked my time and realized I was going to be pretty close to 40 minutes at the end so Rick must have been doing a great ride. I kept looking up to try and see Rick but couldn’t spot him. Then I found JB coming down from the Junction and he explained that the wedding was earlier than he had thought so he had to do an earlier ride. I slowed down a bit after the ranches and finished with a very good time of 40m23s. Rick sure enough set a PB with 37m25s! I told him I needed to get some of that “155” stuff too.

We joined up with Peter coming down from the Summit and we all went down to the South Gate kiosk for a few extra miles. On the way back up to the Junction Peter did his usual fast steady pace and I held on for about 2/3 of the trip, Rick hung on until the finish but Peter still beat him to the line.

Just Wednesday night’s ride remains before the Marin Century next Sunday. I think I’ll do well but I’m definitely going to watch my calorie and fat intake this week.