Monday, April 2, 2012

Tour de Marin

  {Lisa and her shadow before heading out + Clay posing at China Camp outside San Rafael}

Hello friends! 

Thank you AGAIN for visiting our fundraising and training blog! First things first: 

GOOD NEWS: Lisa has reached and exceeded her fundraising goal of $3000. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far. It's not too late to donate, though. You can continue to donate to Lisa here.

Clay is getting closer and closer, but she still needs your support! She's got $460 left to raise (as of the time of this blog post!). You can help her get there by donating here.

Okay, so you may have noticed that it's been two weeks since we last wrote, and that's because we got rained out the weekend of March 24-25. So we decided to take the weekend off to recover. We pretty much laid around and watched movies that weekend and it was AWESOME.

But then it was back to reality yesterday when we decided to make up for lost time and ride 75 miles with our friend Matt. Two of his friends (and fellow ALC riders) also joined us for part of the ride. We were really nervous about going this distance when we a) hadn't ridden more than 20 miles in two weeks and b) the last distance we rode was 57 or so miles. But we decided to go for it, and we're really glad we did.

This week's ride was in Marin County (instead of the Easy Bay where we have been riding a lot lately). We started and ended in Sausalito. And here's how it went:

Sausalito --> Mill Valley --> Corte Madera --> San Rafael --> China Camp --> Lucas Valley --> Nicasio --> Pt. Reyes Station --> Olema --> Samuel P. Taylor --> Lagunitas --> San Geronimo --> Fairfax --> San Anselmo --> Ross --> Larkspur --> Corte Madera --> Mill Valley --> Sausalito

We left the car at about 9:15 am and got back to the car at about 4:30 pm. We spent over 8 hours out there, and just shy of 6 hours on our bikes for the 75 mile trek.

It should be noted that the weather yesterday was spectacular in West Marin, which is where we spent most of the day. It was indeed windy (and thus cold), so it wasn't the easiest ride, but the scenery was beautiful and the sun was shining brightly.

{Cows in Nicasio + Lisa riding on the bike path in Samuel P. Taylor Park}

As many of you know (especially if you read this blog), one of the things we both love so much about riding is seeing all of the animals as we go. Yesterday was no exception. We entertain ourselves as we ride by discussing what the cows are talking about as they graze or why some horses wear coats when it's cold and others go naked. 

Yesterday's ride included several tough climbs including Camino Alto, Lucas Valley Road into Nicasio, Sir Francis Drake out of Olema, Whites Hill and Camino Alto (again). So we were pretty spent when we got back to the car, but we were also really happy.

For one thing, we did it. This was the furthest Lisa has ridden her bike since 1999. And the furthest Clay has ridden in 5 years. And it was actually fun. And we didn't feel like we were going to die afterwards. Guess that's why you train, because after awhile (even though it's always a little bit painful) it does get easier.

{After the ride}

Oh yah, and we each burned over 3000 calories, so we had a big dinner when we got home!

This coming weekend we are going to visit our dear friends Maris and Sacha in Davis. We'll do a ride out there and we are really looking forward to it. We'll be sure to report back afterward.

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