Morning Training Loop with Galen and Jeremy

Strava:  http://app.strava.com/rides/21045223

Last night, Galen solicited a training ride for this morning, so I thought I'd take a beating early and get it over with.  After meeting up with him in bldg 11, we found out Jeremy was coming too.  Oh boy, I'm glad I brought my iPod as Jeremy has a way of riling up the others (reasons unbeknownst to this author - wink, wink), so I'm figuring I'll probably get dropped early on.  I made my plan clear to Galen, who by the way is loving his new frame and this is not a good thing for us, that I was going to just stay in the back early on and if I don't get dropped will take some turns once we get over the 133 (his kill zone).  Jeremy was cool with it too.

So the plan was to warm up in the beginning although I told Galen to just do what he does when he's by himself, and he was totally agreeable to doing so.  However, his warm-up pace was about a 20 mph average just to get us to Bonita Canyon.  Jeremy took turns up front with him to get us up to that pace too.  Thanks?

Galen kept the pace up as we climbed up and over Shady, Quail Hill and Laguna Canyon with Jeremy taking turns to help out while I shamelessly sat in the back and let them rotate in front of me.  Galen had mentioned that the 133 was where he was going to hammer, so I knew I had to save a lot for that section.  After the guys took a swig of water just before hitting the 133, Galen dropped the hammer.

Jeremy was in the #2 spot, and either because he wanted to save it for the lunch ride or his commute home later, at one point waved me on as Galen started to gap the both of us.  My strategy paid off here though since I was able to sprint onto Galen's wheel and have him tow us up and over the hill at a maddening pace where he allowed me to obtain PRs for that segment.  I thought about relieving him at one point, but the guy wasn't slowing down much and just hanging onto his wheel was a bear.

After we crested, Galen saw that Jeremy was way off the back, so we decided to slow down and let him latch back on as we make our way down toward PCH.  At this point, I figured I need to start doing my share of the work and started to alternate with the two as we made our way down to PCH.  I did have the "privilege," if that's what you want to call it, of riding behind Galen who you pretty much have to ask to roll off or he'll never slow down to allow you to do some work.   He's a semi-truck with no brakes, that guy.

Going through Laguna Beach was fast and the following rollers were equally taxing.  At points where it seemed Jeremy was dropping off a bit, he'd manage to latch back on again and resume with rotating in.   Nice.  He did attack the one hill right before the school entrance, but he did go a little too early where Galen and I were able to get by him 3/4 of the way up.

Jeremy was asking about whether we were going up NPC, but Galen had agreed to go to Back Bay at the beginning of the ride.  Thank you!  I know I could use the hill training, but my training yesterday would have made this just ridiculously ugly.  Next time....

Going through CDM, we did run into a little traffic and at one point had to come to a pretty abrupt stop.  Galen called it out as best as he could given the situation, and Jeremy and I did manage to slow/stop in time to avoid cars...but at the time I wasn't sure we would.  Nice adrenalin shot right there though.

I did start us off from there, but Galen must have felt the adrenalin and once again resumed taking the front.  He led us on PCH toward Jamboree at his typical insane pace where I knew to let him do his thing given that he loved that section.  He only started to slow a little (fractionally), so I did take the front and finish the rest of PCH off until we got to Jamboree.

When we got on Back Bay, we all were working and taking turns pulling and even picked up a straggler at one point.  The three of us continued rotating and taking pulls, and Jeremy led the last pull before the final hill where I broke off for a little after charging up it.

I looked back for a bit waiting for the guys to latch back on, and once they did we were off toward University.  Galen jumped ahead after the bridge and finished out the rest of the stretch before California.

Going up California, we did hit the first light after, which took forever, but we maintained a pretty good cool down pace going up it.  I only took the front eventually just to keep our average up for the loop.  Overall, that was one race pace training ride for sure.  Thanks, gents!