Joy to the world!

As I suspected, it was a small turnout for GH #4 and sure enough, right when Miguel was giving his pre-race announcement, the sky opens up!

We roll out together. I used to hate this part the most, fraid of being a squirrel amongst these really good racers. No more of that! I look for those silky-smooth rider guys (mostly DFLs) and hang on like a remora!

Until the climbing part that is. I had the mixed blessing of finally getting to ride with my girls Eka and Mary G! I spent the whole day in the red zone and finally halfway up Joy, I began to recover. By the time Mary and I got back to town, we were laughing like children (or maybe it was the hypothermia)? Life is strange.. HK

Hopper 4

I was very excited to see a slew of NorCal women gathered this morning to accept their share of the punishment: Erika, Mary Greaves, Katrina, Rita Szeto. Right on!

For me, this was one of those days when no matter how hard or easy I rode, I still felt like flat roads were false flats and roads that go up do not in fact go down.

I have a logical explanation. This year I�ve been testing the weekend warrior hypothesis: If you bury yourself on the weekends and ride rollers for no more than 40 minutes during the week, then fitness happens. This is like the code of the weekend warrior, and this week I broke the code by ditching work this past Wednesday with Katrina and doing Fort Ross at a pretty good clip. Bad move, dumb ass. And now I have to start the experiment all over!

At the start, I �cased the field� and determined that no woman at the race was ahead of me in the contest for the overall prize (see K�s Marshall Wall report for details). So I knew all I had to do was finish and I�d have it cinched up. Unless of course, I lose a leg sometime in the next couple months and become unable to do every remaining �Hopper.

So the plan was to stick with the pack and get my free ride to the base of Fort Ross, and then take the climb at my own pace. �Buh-buy everybody!� The sad thing is that taking it easy felt no better than pushing it. I just couldn�t get it right. Okay, pull over, take your jacket off, wipe off your Rudys and get yourself together! �Hey, Jay-Dub, what�s up? Let�s go!� But we didn�t really get anywhere. It was sher �nuff slow going.

Then at the top, I encountered an entourage of other Bobas who were regrouping. THANK GAWD! It was Pete Sweeney, Aaron Walker, Briant Smith, et al. Briant is like my favorite wheel in the whole wide world! So Sea View was pretty darn fun! You usually can�t go wrong with a good Boba, but then they tell me that no, I can�t work with them and make up some time because they�re turning and going home! WHAT???? Bye Bye Big Boba Draft.

The rest of the ride amounted to fighting a perpetual headwind that pushed me all over the road. Joy Road was so excruciating that I considered walking. There was a definitive head-wind up Joy Road. I was pretty pathetic, and I�m so glad Jesse wasn�t taking photos.

But now I�m cool. I�m sitting here at home, with a full belly of chicken noodle soup, watching a bootleg copy of live Eurosport coverage of Milan San Remo 2006. Life is good.

-Claire

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004