Sly Park, Round Two and TT

Sly Park

Randy and I went back to Sly Park to camp with some of his family friends. There were a LOT of people along with 13 dogs. Yes, lots of barking. We also had to watch out for land mines... yup.

The first night we just hung out, ate dinner, hung around the camp fire. People drank and it was hilarious. I actually drank a beer, which took me forever to drink since it was a 40, but I still drank it. Got relaxed, that's for sure. One person almost fell on Randy. Hah!

On Saturday we went out on Mormon Emigrant Trail for an easy spin up. My legs felt like lead, but the more we rode, the better they felt. We did about 20 miles on the road that day. Then, we decided to go out on a mountain bike ride, where I didn't crash, and called it a day for riding. The rest of the time we hung out, chatted, ate good food, and hung around the campfire. We went to bed around 11:30PM due to having to wake up early for a 6:30AM ride we were doing with Noah from Team Revs. Problem: There was a baby that cried every effin' night at 3AM. Did I get sleep? Hardly. A bitchy morning for me was in tow.

Oh, and bitchy I was! I didn't eat breakfast in the morning, due to feeling like a damned zombie and never wanting to punch a baby so hard in my life (this is a figure of speech, people. Don't go all "OMG YOU GONNA PUNCH A BAYYYYYYYBEEEE???" Sheesh...). Met up with Noah and, to our surprise, Lance as well. We started riding up, nice and slow, the way I like to warm up. It was pretty chilly. Lance had darted in front of us and was a bit ahead. Noah, Randy, and I were catching up in the mean time. The ride was pretty good, not too cold after a few miles on climbing. Then the real climbing started. We caught up with Lance and then went ahead of him. He said that the steeper climbs were harder for him (ummm.. I think for everyone!). My rides are always no drop rides, so we'd wait for him whenever we couldn't see him behind us.

HWY 88 came up, and we decided to definitely go on it and ride towards Silver Lake. We rode, and climbed, and chatted, were afraid to get hit, but that's what happens on those highways. We got to 8,000 feet of elevation and we decided that, yup, we'll go down to Silver Lake even though we're going to have a horrible climb back up. Down we went.

At the lodge in Silver Lake, we got water and rested a bit. We saw people throwing axes and looked like rough mountain people. We were in spandex. Lance started ahead of us while Randy, Noah, and I were taking our sweet time. We decided to head out. The climb wasn't as bad as I thought it was. It was a steady climb... with motor homes coming close to us. We didn't get hit, which was awesome (derp). We caught up with Lance and went head. Finally we hit the summit again at 8,000 feet. The downhill-[ish] started. At the turn, we also heard lots of gun shots, which is typical for MET. I have posted pictures of me wearing the Team Revs jersey. It looks like we have targets in on our chest and back... and there are gun shots, and we're in spandex. Four people in spandex with targets on. Food for thought.

No, I'm kidding. But it's still funny to think about.

We turned onto MET again and had some climbing to do. We obviously didn't have enough. After a few miles back into MET, we started the downhill/rollers. Randy's bike was being a prick, so he couldn't go too fast (no 50 mph, haha!). I got into Noah's draft, and because I'm short and he's not, I didn't have to do much of anything! A few more little speed bumps, some more fast downhill, some sketchy parts, and we were back home. No accidents and no technical issues except for Randy's bike not liking life at the moment.

Overall, it was 65 miles and about 6,700 feet of elevation gain in 4 hour and 59 minutes of riding time. Sweet! It was a good ride. I was less cranky the more I rode, too, which was fantastic. We went back to the campground after we dropped off and said our good-byes to Noah and Lance. Everyone was there. Some packing, others drinking and chillin'. Awesome times. We packed the bikes up and headed to Randy's parent's, where we showered, ate, and I passed out on the couch for an hour.

Time Trial

Unfortunately, due to lack of sleep and some stress, I started to feel really sick. My throat was hurting during the MET to Silver Lake ride. I took Monday off, and decided to Time Trial yesterday. The wind was brutal, I was feeling ill, but I went anyway. I talked myself into going. The way out was painful due to the headwind being so strong. The way back was nicer, but it still hurt. I looked at my speedometer and I was going around 26mph, which I haven't really done on the way back on the TT. It was the fastest so far. I sprinted to the finish line at 29.1 mph, whereas last week I could only sprint to 27.2 mph. Overall, it was better. My time, even though I was sick, is the best I've had this season! 27:41 minutes. My goal is to get a sub 27-1/2, so I'm getting closer. Practice, I suppose. Practice.

I still feel sick, but maybe an easy spin will help ;)