I felt pretty good about this ride, even though I was a little grumbly about my cold fingers. I worked pretty hard all day to stay up with the leaders of the pack.After the ride, a few of us went over to eat at the same restaurant I always eat at when I'm in Yountville (three times, including this one). The wait for inside seating was prohibitively long, so we opted to sit outside if they promised to turn on those standing heaters for us. I don't know why those things are so tall. Doesn't everyone know that heat rises?
This photo was at lunch while we were shivering and waiting for the check. I had commented that Jeff O (left) and Jim McCann had the same hat on. Jeff said, "Yeah, I thought about that when I got up this morning."
I said, "Oh, so you two woke up together?"
They both cracked up (JimMcCann has been with Donnie for many many years and most certainly did not wake up with Jeff) and that's when I snapped this photo.
Okay, so the benchmark rides. I haven't found my photos from this weekend, but as I said before, there aren't many.
Saturday was a 43-mile ride in Winters full of hills. Big ones. In fact, one of them is the hill that I hyperventilated on last year because I got so freaked out while I was climbing. I had a long talk with myself on my drive over to Winters in the morning. The reason I freaked out on that hill was that I had decided I wasn't going to be able to climb it, so when I got on the hill, I couldn't climb it. No psych degree needed for that one. I have an announcer in my head that reiterates for me ad nauseum what my limitations are. Specifically, the announcer frequently tells me I am out of my league and I should just give up.
On my way to Winters, I decided to change the channel. Maybe some other announcer would like a chance. Apparently, the default channel in my head is set on self-defeat, and it took constant reminding to change the channel. 43 miles of reminding, actually. The first section of the ride is mostly flat/rolling, but takes about an hour. I decided to pull over before the first main hill to have some Gu and water as I noticed I was getting a little grumpy -- a sure sign that I needed some food. So I stopped, Gu'd, watered, and continued on. Hill #1: not a huge hill, and not as big as I'd remember. Hill #2: remembered stopping halfway up last year and feeling like rolling back down, but with my new channel, just decided to keep pedaling because I didn't think it was that long. Hill #3: hyperventilation hill. The problem I had last year was that I was climbing up a big hill, didn't know where I was, and I thought I still had to turn to get to the Big Hill. So I thought if I was having such a hard time on this [little 'h'] hill, how the heck was I going to climb the BH? Turns out, I was actually on BH, but the defeating channel didn't notice.
So this time, I figured if I just assumed that every hill was BH, I could work myself through it. This plan was met with mixed results. I ended up going very slowly on the 4-5 miles of rolling hills because I was trying to 'pace' myself up any given hill, just in case. That said, when I did (finally) get to BH, I just kept riding, and just kept telling myself I was going to get up.
Result: I did it! First time climbing Cantelow without stopping.
I'd like that to go in my baby book, along with my first words and first day of school. I wonder what my first words were.
Last hill was up to the Monticello Dam. Also climbed that without stopping -- last time I did this hill on my own, I almost didn't finish, and stopped at least once. There was freezing rain up there at the dam (okay, technically not freezing rain), so no sense dawdling.
That was that. Once we finished, the sun started to come out. And Joaquin tried on one of many shirts we had to give away.
Yeah. It's a women's tank that says, "Me Not Meth."
Coming up eventually: day two of the Benchmark ride.
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