Diablo Junction 23 miles
2004 Hurl Ride No. 2

The long-anticipated second Hurl Ride of the year has arrived. Adam arranged everything but we didn’t have nearly the turn out that we did in April. I’ve been away on a business trip and due to some airline SNAFU’s I didn’t get home until 1:30 this afternoon so I didn’t even go in to work. I ate a big breakfast in Phoenix, a normal lunch at home with my family, I had jet lag and felt rotten from being on a plane, but I was going to give it my best shot.

Adam assigned everyone their handicap and start times so that we’d all finish pretty close to 6:30. Edgardo insisted his goal would be 69 minutes (gotta know Ed to appreciate this one) so he was gone before anyone else showed up. I got to ride from home and I saw Nicole, and Amanda with her new bike – a Trek hybrid and a HUGE upgrade from the borrowed POS she had been using a few months ago; they were both going for 60 minutes so they left the Gate at 5:30. Tiffany has been riding well, and her goal was 45 minutes for a PB. JB’s been getting faster recently and left at 5:52 hoping for a 38 minute ride. Adam had me down for a 35m35s which was 16 seconds faster than my PB of 35m51s set only a few weeks ago – as I said, I didn’t think it was going to happen based on how I felt, but mentally I was prepared to give it everything so I set off at 5:54:25. Adam was going for that uber-elusive 30 minute ride and his own PB.

I started out exactly on time, but didn’t realize that I hadn’t started the stopwatch on my heart rate monitor until after a mile or so – I still had the stopwatch on my bike computer but I wouldn’t be able to freeze the split times for later. I went fast but didn’t sprint and didn’t even get out of the saddle until the top of the Bump where I wanted get my cadence back up as soon as possible. Seemed like it was going very well and I was feeling better but when I saw 17m30s with 3 miles to go I allowed myself to think this could be close. I still hadn’t seen any of the riders in front of me, which is good because it meant everyone else was also riding well and we’d finish at nearly the same time.

I was too focused to crunch numbers but 17.5 plus 18 minutes for the last three puts me in PB territory and I’ve done the last three in less than 18 before. I stayed focused and tried to stay efficient. Near the Upper Ranch I finally passed Nicole and Amanda. I said to them “You guys don’t look like you’re pushing it” and Amanda said “Push this”… that was worth a good chuckle, but then I got back to being focused.

Coming around Big Shady Oak with a mile to go I saw Tiffany on the final stretch – good for her, she should just about make her handicap. But I didn’t see JB and I assumed he’d sand bagged his handicap again and was riding a sub 35 time. With four hundred meters to go, I finally decided it was time to accept a higher level of pain so I completely zoned out and suffered my way to the line.

New PB: 35m46s. Five seconds better than my PB from a couple weeks ago, only eleven seconds slower than the goal Adam had set for me. It was an awesome ride and it’s gonna stand for a while because I am *not* doing that again any time soon.

Turns out JB was after Tiffany but somehow I didn’t see him. Adam came in at 33 minutes – he said he would have been even slower except he couldn’t allow me to have a faster time than him. Nicole and Amanda came in well over an hour – Nicole says she just doesn’t have the drive to push herself to a faster time and well, that’s OK I guess; not everyone has to think the same about riding.