Beal's Boogie

I've been burning the candle at both ends all week, and yesterday it caught up with me. I slept most of the day, woke up for a few hours and went to bed early, hoping to wake up refreshed today. It was cold, so I baked a half-dozen potatoes and ate one before heading off to bed for the night. Good carbs for making liver glycogen.

I blew off a great club ride, as it was clear I needed to sleep in today, and because the club ride wasn't very tough. At 29 miles and 1,200 ft of climbing, it was almost flat. I decided to sleep in, wait till it warmed up a bit and just head up to Beal's Pt at Lake Folsom this afternoon.

It's been awhile since I've been up there, and especially, using my 'standard' route, so I was surprised I was able to do the ride at a good pace. It took me 1:53 minutes to do the 32 miles and ~ 2,400 ft of climbing. I put on a short sleeve jersey, wind vest, and balaclava at Beals for the fast descent - in addition to leg warmers I wore for the entire trip. It's getting cold out there again.

I loved the dense air, and could tell it in my recovery time after pushing hard into Zone 5, but it will make for cold mornings. It's supposed to get down to 37 degrees here tonight.

The calf rehab continues to go well, although it was very close to cramping up on me climbing up the Hazel Ave corkscrew up onto the bridge. It's about a 30% grade, so standing and hammering it is about the only option. Another 10 ft and I would have been in trouble. I nursed the calf home though, and hope it will respond well to the exercise as it has been doing right along.

All in all it was a great ride and great weather for it. I even got a little racing in coming down from Beal's and all the way back to the turn-off for Main St after Negro Bar. He dropped me hard on that 6% hill, as I anticipated, but I reeled him in again after a mile or so. Unfortunately I had to kill most of my speed to dodge some peds at Negro Bar, so I was chasing him down again when he turned off the trail.

Good times!