Ridgecrest Road going up Mount Tamalpais		Training Diary: SF-Alpine Lake Loop May 22, 2001 Here we go again. Another training ride with Dale Freeman -- king of the mountains cyclist turned triathlete in training who's here to pump... you up. Have I become a masochist or something? Dale's rides have clearly been the toughest I've joined and here I find myself itching for more quad-busting work on two wheels. Appropo for that hill on the third day of the CA AIDSRide called the Quadbuster, but do any similar hills exist in the Northeast? Time will tell. Guess where Dale took us today? Why, Mount Tam again of course. Today's route, for the most part, took us along the same route as the SF-Stinson-Fairfax ride I did last week, only in the reverse direction. The familiarity of the early parts of the route provided some comfort, even as the climbs did get a little long and hot. And while the topographic map on our route sheet today looked less initimidating than the last ride we did up Mount Tam, I believe the climbing work we endured today was just as intensive and psychologically challenging. The last third of the prolonged climbing stretch took us along Ridgecrest Road, high above the coastal clouds hugging the Marin County coastline. Here at least we were rewarded by some awesome scenery. If the workout I got wasn't enough, there were two riders in today's group, Jen and Dio, who took a wrong turn and descended Mount Tam to Stinson Beach instead of continuing the climb. The painful result: retracing their way back up Fairfax-Bolinas road, an extra 1,500 feet of climbing and almost 12 extra miles to an already tough ride. That's quite a feat guys! Team Schwab's California AIDSRide team leader, Lorri, also took a wrong turn somewhere (thanks to erroneous instructions on the official route directions), thereby making her climb an extra 600 feet and 2 miles to reach the Eastern peak of Mount Tam. Meanwhile, the rest of us were regrouping at the Pan Toll Ranger station planning an unofficial group training ride to get a back-to-back workout in for the week. Nine of us committed to meeting in Golden Gate Park tomorrow. Even better, all of us committed to one more rest stop before ride's end for ice cream in Sausalito. Heck, after a workout like this, we should be able to eat anything we damn well please. The fun I was having on the descent along Panoramic Highway to Mill Valley was suddenly interrupted by an insect incident. A bee flying in my path somehow got caught in one of my helmet's vents and couldn't escape as I'm sure the headwinds from travelling about 35 miles per hour trapped it. So the bloody thing stung me in the head. Good thing I was carrying some Benadryl to prevent any minor allergic reactions I could have to the bite, which was itchy and uncofortable at worst -- definitely not enough to keep me from tomorrow's ride.
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