Saturday was interesting to say the least. The idea was that Matt, Chris and I would go on a 100 mile “training ride” and then I would get back home to cook dinner for my mom and cousin who were in town for the night. Funny that a century is a fun little jaunt out in the morning now.

I got going a little early on Saturday morning and ended up on Capitol Hill much sooner than I thought that I might. Chris backed out with a cold so I naturally rode to the hill early. If I’m ready ahead of time for a ride, I always pace around the house. I’m not nervous… just antsy. I called up Matt and told him that I was like half an hour early (sorry, Matt) and that I could meet him at the coffee shop we were planning on going to. He offered to let me come up to his place and hang out for a bit.

I got to experience his four flight stair climb that he must tackle after each ride, bicycle and all. We left roughly on time but went to the coffee shop anyways for some donuts and coffee. Even though we motored to the start, we were still 5 minutes late or so.

The route put everyone on Burke Gilman, so we figured that we could just stay on trail and we would see people eventually. Despite moving along quite swiftly, we didn’t catch up to anyone. The winter training series must have really been working because everyone was long gone.

By the time we got out to Woodinville, we missed our proper turn and ended up riding towards Red Hook Brewery. We took an alternate hill in an attempt to cross paths with the correct roads. There were some amazingly beautiful climbs in the area. They were steep but tree lined and had low traffic. A few quick stops and GPS consulting later, we eventually found our way back on course.

In a real brevet, this would be a no no… but we were just trying to make our way around at this point. I don’t think we took any real shortcuts though. The hills were pretty relentless.

Once we got to Carnation, we made a decision to cut the ride “short” and go over Tolt Hill out towards Lake Sammamish and eventually catch the I-90 trail. We knew again that we weren’t doing ourselves any favors. It was actually just tacking on even more hills than we might of had. Still, it was fun to push my body a bit. I feel like I am getting a bit faster as the year goes on. It is a subtle increase in speed, but it really seems to make all the difference over the long haul.

We ended up catching a rider that left the SIR ride early and he hung with us in to town. He and Matt kept threatening to lose me over the few remaining hills back home but I hung on. I ended up with about 105 miles for the day, including my ride to meet up with Matt.

After we split up, I met my family at Stellar Pizza for a much needed late lunch. I tried my best to not look freakishly tired and be personable. My cousin was in town from McChord AFB with my mom in from Portland. They offered to go get the groceries for dinner so I could shower and rest up a bit.

For some reason, I chose a recipe that required about 4 hours of prep and cooking that night. It was my Lamb Shanks with mashed potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts with pecans. Everything turned out amazing, but I lost most of my appetite in the process of putting it all together. For some reason, I always have a hard time eating much on the day of a ride. It was fun spending time with them all, but I had to crash out early.

P.S. – Candidate for Passive Aggressive Notes?

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