6/23/97
Didn't ride today, but had a big mileage (for me) weekend.
This weekend was the STP ride. STP is the annual bicycle ride from Seattle to Portland. It's a bit under 200 miles. Most people do it in two days, and some hardy souls do it in one. I was thinking about doing it, but I didn't, because I still have some school stuff to finish off.
Last Thursday at the Seward Crit, I told Mike Petty and Don Perry that I'll be there for the weekend training ride, so off I went on Saturday. The weather was supposed to be bad, but it never really got that bad.
I arrived at the usual meeting place at the Intramural Activities building of the U of Washington. There was a very big crowd of people walking by. I saw a sign that said "Beat the Bridge", and remembered about the run/walk that Lan (my girlfriend) told me about. It's an annual event where people either run or walk a variety of courses. The cute gimmick is that if they don't return by a certain time, the drawbridge opens, and they have to wait.
Eventually, Don and Mike showed up, as did Mark Nelson, the ACC secretary. We decided to do the South End and cut accross the I-90 and go around Mercer Island. The other guys like to do Mercer Island. It's fairly up and down and twisty, but with little traffic, so they can do 'speedwork'. This is usually where I get dropped.
The group went pretty hard and fast. I struggled to keep up. They dropped me at Mercer Island, but since it's an island, it's pretty hard to get lost. On my own I managed to keep up an okay pace, which picked up when I passed and then got passed by two other riders. One was they guy who administered the second day of my track racing class, Ken Hillyer.
At the end of Saturday, I was totally tired. Don asked us if we wanted to go again on Sunday. I agreed.
We met an hour earlier on Sunday, and did about 44 miles. Less than Saturday, but much hillier. I thought I'd be dead, but I didn't feel that much worse than the day before. Maybe I'm getting stronger.
An interesting note on Sunday was that in Bellvue, we got passed by this large woman on a neat bike (Shiny Cannondale with Spinergy wheels). She looked pretty heavy, but not overly so. Just in a strong looking way. She was going pretty fast on the flats, and pulled away from us. We caught her pretty easily when we decided to. The others totally smoked her on the hills, and I managed to stay in front of her until the downhill when she passed me. Pretty entertaining.