Magic Spot Flowing

I’m feeling strangely awake even though exhausted, so, a report on today’s ride:

Stats: 68 mi (daily total — the ride was 66 and Menlo-Atherton HS is about 1 mi from my house).
AVS: 13.1mph
MXS: 34.1mph (Crystal Springs Rd, also the first time I have violated a set speed limit because one section has a 25 mph limit)
Ride time: 5:12
Total time: The total time engaged in riding activities was from around 8am to 3:45 pm, or 6:45. Some of that was going to the ride and registering and that sort of thing, some was lunch, some was the rest stops and minibreaks we took.

This ride was really, really tough. I didn’t expect anything else, knowing that the climbing included both Edgewood and Stevens Canyon (plus Montebello up to the lunch stop) as well as a variety of other smaller hills, and that the total distance was 20 more miles than I had ever ridden in one day before. But it was still tougher than I had really imagined.

You can see the route on the site, but they don’t seem to offer a route profile. The climbs included Edgewood, Polhemus, rolling hills on Canada and Portola, Arastradero, Purissima, Elena, Summerhill (short), Stevens Canyon, and Montebello.

I was quite annoyed to discover that the lunch stop was not until nearly mile 50 by my computer (we missed one turn and backtracked — the route was not terribly well marked, with missing route arrows and sometimes a confusion with route arrows from previous rides). Aside from the annoying lunch stop placement and the lack of signage, the route was well-designed, with a nice combination of looping and backtracking, and a reasonable amount of time to recover from most of the hills. It helped that between me and my riding partner we were familiar with most of the roads that we covered, with the exception of Stevens Canyon which I had only been up in a car before.

The climb up Monte Bello to lunch was only 1/2 mile, but it was terribly steep, well exceeding the critical threshold for me. I had to walk substantial portions of the climb in the end, but I got up under my own power. On the way down, my riding partner and I got a ride down to the intersection with Stevens Canyon. Both of us felt nervous about such a steep, curvy descent on wobbly legs, and also felt that failing to descend that very short segment did not in any way compromise our sense of completion of the ride, in a way that failing to ascend it would have.

Lunch was better than I’ve had at other rides, but nothing particularly special — sandwiches, fruit, cookies, etc., even though they advertise as an attraction of the ride that the food is good. So that was a bit of a disappointment as well. The winery place is nifty, though I didn’t have much chance to look around, being more focused on giving myself food, water, and rest. They had a real restroom there (not a portapotty), which was awesome.

One of the best moments was up on Elena (a route through Los Altos Hills) with a stunning and unexpected view of the whole enchilada, right over to the bay and the East Bay hills. It may be a brutal hill to climb but at least it brings rewards. Today was also my first time on 92, Skyline, and Crystal Springs, and I enjoyed those quite a bit. Cañada is always nice, of course.

In general, the ride was really pleasant in the earlier part of the day, up to about the end of Elena. Then it started to get hot and tiring. It was pretty boiling by the time we got to Stevens Canyon, and the ride back was just a long slog back up Foothill.

It was a LOT of climbing. A lot. I don’t think it’s even as much as Waves to Wine either. I just can’t comprehend what W2W is going to be like. But at least I can see that distance-wise I can do it (though I’m still wondering about the second day — I have no reserves left today and will not be on bike tomorrow). I was only seven miles from hitting 75 today — a distance that would have been almost incomprehensible to me a few short weeks ago when a weekend of a 34-mile ride and a 15-mile ride (with plenty of climbing, but still less than this) tired me out to the point of deep exhaustion that affected me negatively for the next three days.

I had a lot of funky feelings in my feet and seat, but avoided chafing with copious reapplication of chamois cream, and overall am feeling sore in a lot of muscles I knew I had and some I didn’t, but I’m definitely still functioning and am, quite frankly, extremely proud of myself.

I’ll have more say later when I don’t have to go catch a train, but my overall feeling right now is: I am still alive and I finished. And I am unbelievably tired of climbing hills.

I thought I might be imagining it, but I don’t think so anymore: Language Log is getting less focused and less good than it used to be.

Bill Poser today wrote an entry about how runners hear the start gun at different times because of the speed of sound in air. The ‘hook’ used to relate this to linguistics is that if people studied acoustic phonetics, they would know this was a problem.

Yes…but if they studied physics, or even general science, they would know this too. I am not impressed with this as a linguistics hook. Sorry, but Language Log is supposed to be about linguistics, not about the fairness of Olympic track racing. Read down the list of recent entries, and then browse through a segment of LL Classic and see what you think about their relative interestingness.

I don’t know if this is an affliction common to blogs, but I’ve seen it happen to several. BoingBoing, which was once what its tagline claims (a directory of wonderful things) has become highly political. I still find it interesting to check out, but the slant on the politics is also high (unclear incidents of civil liberty violations are made to sound highly inflammatory), and that makes it even less interesting than just politics (which after all is also interesting, though perhaps not always wonderful).

Both BB and LL also added comments fairly recently. The comments sections are generally better than average, but they rarely add much to the original entry. I preferred both blogs when you had to email the original poster to comment, even though your words were subject to their whims. (My comments were mentioned or published a couple of times on both BB and LL, which was neat, but that’s neither here nor there.) This has contributed to my current feelings about their decline — which is funny because I can always just skip the comments if I don’t want to read them.

Stats:
DST: 46.6 mi
AVS: 13.9
MXS: 37.4 (omg)
Ride Time: 3:20
Total time: 3:50

Route: 34-mile route with Foothill to El Monte and Cañada to 92 extensions.

I was pretty beat after getting back from Portland and didn’t start the ride until 1pm. This turned out to be a good reminder of why I ride in the mornings most of the time: the wind was pretty brutal, especially on Cañada between Edgewood and 92. At least I got the benefit of it being at my back on the way home.

It wasn’t a bad ride overall — a bit slow, just a struggle to keep going some of the time. I really started feeling the distance after a while, just a feeling like “Why am I not home yet?” I didn’t get to take a day off this week because of the way my Portland trip was set up, and my Portland routes were much hillier than my usual weekly rides, so I also started out a bit drained in that regard.

I had a lot of soreness in my legs and glutes, as well as feeling more weirdness/soreness than expected in my hands and feet, and stretched for a while at the top of Cañada while enjoying the view. The fog was starting to creep in over the hills up there, which was neat. The view of Mt. Diablo from Edgewood was surprising and cool, and realizing I was going 37.4mph (on a straightish section) was absolutely terrifying and yet awesome. Am I becoming a speed freak? :-) I hit 30 again on a descent on Alameda and had a hard time stopping at a stop sign. Perhaps I should use my brakes a bit more wisely.

I also saw a wedding or some other fancy party in progress in Atherton — with valet parking. You know you’re stupidly rich when you have valet parking at your house.

The lowlights were pretty much the usual: struggling up hills. I stopped twice to get more water (there’s a water fountain on Arastradero at Purissima, and one behind the store in Woodside) and ate most of the peanut butter-honey gunk I had brought at Woodside and then at Cañada. This is a brilliant concoction suggested by a friend of mine, and was a lifesaver today when I didn’t have anything else in the house due to being away.

I also got a bit of saddle chafing again. I think it may be time to replace that saddle with a Butterfly. Mike’s Bikes is having a sale this week, so maybe I’ll do the new helmet and new shorts and jerseys and stuff now too. I thought I was going to get new stuff from Terry, but I ordered it and the two pairs of bottoms both have seams up the inner thigh (wtf? why would you do that?) and the jersey just has too many seams, period. So I guess that’s not going to work.

En fin, I also had some knee pain while I was in Portland. I think it was because the bike I was riding didn’t fit me quite right and had too much cleat float, and on top of that I had the saddle a little low to start with, and then I was climbing steep hills (including up to the Rose Garden) and all that. I thought it would go away, but I’m still getting what I hope are just after-effects. It seems to happen at kind of random times, not necessarily when I’m climbing hard.

This is definitely a week for carefully monitoring my physical condition and taking good care of myself, and hopefully I’ll be back in good shape for the Tour de Menlo next Saturday. I haven’t decided how I’m going to ride today — I don’t want to end up more chafed.

Useless nominalization – defeated!

I have to admit that I’m pleased about this on both pedantic and political grounds (the current phrasing is correct, and the current phrasing is more likely to assist in the measure’s defeat), but mostly what caught my eye is the judge referring to the desired change as “useless nominalization”. Nice phrase.

Stats:
DST: 41 mi
AVS: 14.4 mph
MXS: ~30mph
Ride time: 3 hrs
Total time: 3 hrs 45 min

Route: Sand Hill > Foothill (down to Homestead and back) > Alpine > Portola > Mountain Home > Woodside > Valparaiso > Middlefield > Willow.

This is the first single ride I’ve done over 40 mi (also my first very long training ride where I had a ride partner), and it was surprisingly uneventful. It has less climbing than the other long ride routes I’ve done so far, and I’ve been feeling really good this week, continuing to see good effects from training: it’s easier to keep a higher average speed, climbing is less exhausting (!), sprinting is easier, and my leg muscles less worn out. So right now I’m feeling more optimistic about this whole endeavor. I’m hoping the slight interruptions that will be induced by my trip to Portland won’t have a negative effect. (I will be riding while there, on a rented road bike, but I won’t have the bike until Monday.)

The route for this ride was nice — in the early morning, sunny Foothill is pleasant, and as it heats up, Portola and Mountain Home save the day with their shadiness. The main highlight (aside from general awesomeness and feeling good) was a friendly gas station attendant in a station on Alpine where we were looking for a bathroom, who directed us right to it (it was clean!), didn’t complain when I only bought a package of Certs, and even would have taken my $1.48 in exact change instead of the $1.49 they cost (but fortunately my ride partner had a penny). Thank you, Mr. Gas Station Guy!

Alaska Airlines helpfully sent me an email notification today reminding me to check in on the web before my flight. I elected to click their helpful link to do so (note to Southwest: you could learn something from this) and was conveniently reminded that my flight leaves from SJC, not from SFO. Oh yeah, right — part of the reason we use Alaska for work travel is that work is much closer to SJC. But somehow I’d gotten it in my head I was going to SFO. Planned the transit trip there and everything.

I am extremely glad that email notification saved me from screwing that up.