Maybe it's just me, but seeing that Galen and Shannon are coming out for the lunch ride always seems to cause my heart rate to go up while I'm still in the locker room. Mitchell, Marc (my first time seeing him out there in a while although I hear he was out on Tuesday), and Adrian came out as well, so at least I knew I wasn't the only one who would suffer their punishment. Hey, it's all about sharing the love, right?
Rightfully, we all let Shannon and Galen lead us out to Culver where I'm sure everyone else with me was thinking this was the only way we can hopefully have a chance to keep up. It doesn't seem team-like to do so, but my thought is I just want to optimize their training. Yeah...that's it.
I did take the front after we got onto Culver to bring the pace up, and everyone jumped on. Shortly after, Galen, Adrian, Shannon and Mitchell passed me, so I was thinking it'd be cool just to hang on. Galen and Adrian kicked it up a notch and broke away a little bit, but apparently, Adrian missed the memo that there was a lot more climbing to do. They definitely went for the KOM in that segment, but unfortunately, it just didn't happen.
After we rounded the corner to go on Campus toward Turtle Rock, we passed Adrian who pretty much looked like he had thrown his bike in reverse (must be a Cannondale gear that our bikes don't have). Galen was not the worse for wear, however and as expected, so he came with us to head to Starcrest. That, however, was the last we saw of Adrian on the route.
Going up Turtle Rock, I just couldn't hold their wheel and while Mitchell did a lot longer, he too suffered the same fate and fell off. He did latch on to me as I passed him though, and we ended up riding up Starcrest not too far behind Galen and Shannon. We at least could still see them as we neared the top, but by the time I got to Summit Court, they were gone.
Mitchell had fallen off a bit on that climb, but by the bottom of Ridgeline had once again caught up to me. We could see Galen and Shannon ahead of us, and Mitchell started to work with me to keep the pace up as we headed toward Shady. We could still see them as we climbed up shady, but once Mitchell and I crested, they were gone.
Mitchell and I opted to go through the gate (vs. the long way) because 1) I didn't actually know the route and thought if Shannon and Galen had gone through the gate, they would definitely be too far ahead to run into at a light if we took the long way and 2) I was tired. HA HA
As Mitchell and I were climbing up the Shady rise that headed towards Bonita Canyon, we did see that Shannon and Galen took the long way and thought, "Cool! We may have a chance to catch them at Bonita canyon."
As we neared the bike trail opening, one of the construction guys stepped out and stopped us only to have us watch Shannon and Galen go through the green light ahead of us. They stopped us to let this big old truck try and get turned around on our side of the street without being able to cross over the median. We literally sat there for several minutes watching him make multiple attempts to do so reminiscent of this Austin Powers scene:
We then get caught at the light after once we were finally able to go, the light to go on Turtle Rock and the two lights to go onto Summit after. At that point, I was fully recovered where I decided to ride up the hill off the seat breaking away from Mitchell...finally. Thankfully, Shannon and Galen had waited for us midway down, and the 4 of us regrouped and headed toward Bonita Canyon together.
Thankfully, that break did help keep Galen and Shannon from snapping us off again...barely...and that's with holding them out some. Sorry guys.
When we got onto Ford, I was thinking to myself if they stayed behind me, I'll try to lead them up the Condo, but Galen offered the same after passing me with Mitchell in tow. I tried to latch on but he was already going too fast for me to do so. HA HA. I was able to get some momentum on the turn to Jamboree and had a decent run up the hill. I kept looking back expecting someone to pass me though, but they must have felt sorry for me.
We all regrouped on Bison and although I wasn't sure if anyone was game based on the light situation over the 73, I did take off on the last light just to see if I had any snap. Again, no one followed so they must have been in cool down mode already.
While that would normally be the end of the blog, I did want to point how that once we got back to the gym, Shannon started hitting squats. Wow. That's just way too much BAM for me.
Thanks for the workout, gents!
Luv Austin Powers!
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