A good days ride

Ride: Gaviota Run
Distance: 51 miles
Ride time: 3:27
Avg. Speed: 15mph
2010 miles to date: 3,193
Weekly miles: 139 so far


I was planning on riding through the hills of Santa Barbara, but I forgot that it was Fiesta weekend and I didn't want to bother with the high traffic and crowds of people, so rode the Gaviota run instead and added the Patterson run so I could put in 50 miles.  I took off at 7 am with a heavy marine layer and heavy mist.  I wanted to leave earlier but it was still pretty dark out with the heavy marine layer.  It was quite cool, but there was no wind.  There seemed to be a lot more traffic on the road then last weekend, maybe because of Fiesta with a lot of people visiting Santa Barbara.

I road well and I road strong and I was able to pick up the pace a little without my knee hurting. The miles went by quickly with stopping once at Vista Point on the return leg for something to eat.  I had a Gel and a Larabar - a gluten free fruit and nut bar with 30 grams of carbs and 200 calories.  I'm trying to stay away from energy bars with high refined sugars and processed foods.  I plan to start making my own whole-raw-food energy bars and Gel.

As I rode, my thoughts kept going to how my job, well not my job but the environment were I work, just plan sucks.  The management keeps changing the organization structure and they just changed it again.  Now the engineering group reports to the manufacturing manager instead of the engineering manager.  There is now a split between manufacturing engineers and R&D engineers.  This was tried before in another department and it failed, mainly because they didn't let the engineers be engineers. Anyway enough about work - this is not about my job!!! that's what I kept telling myself when my mind drifted to the subject.  I instead thought about my training and how I wanted to proceed after I meet the goals I set up for the year.  I think I will start doing a 90 day strength training program like P90X after my next century ride.  I want to start it in September and finish up in December, get back into riding in December so I could be ready for the fist century of 2011 in January.  I have 9 century rides planed in 2011 before the cross country trip.

Map and Stats of today's ride.

Train Tacks at Vista Point

Guess who

Give up?

Me that's who

Don't forget to STOP AND SMELL THE RIDE!!!!