Mul-HOLE-land….
Saturday was my first ride with the BBKings. Westlake-Potrero-into Camarillo-Las Posas-PCH-Mulholland-back down Westlake to start. 48 miles. Seemed easy enough. 48 miles, how hard can it be? Well, 4 hours and 15 minutes, 2 water bottles, and 4 gu packets later, I was back at home. Exhausted, hungry, sticky, and stinky. My left knee (the one that’s always given me problems) started aching after the Mulholland climb. DOH! The knee hasn’t ached for months! I guess the Mulholland 7 mile hole did the knee in. They did mention in the email that the ride was an “easy” one. ERrrr…. Man, I need to get better! The ride started out good, but went downhill in the last 10 miles.
I met everyone at the start point and started the ride. For once, I wasn’t the last one in the group! I started to toward the front and gradually fell back to the middle group. Unbelievable. I was expecting to be the last one. It was all fine until we hit Mulholland. I was in the middle of the bunch until we started climbing Mulholland. Either I should have kept on going without a break, so I am really out of shape. Bruce, the “mother hen” of the group suggested that I take it slow, steady, nice and easy up the 7 mile climb. SEVEN MILES~! At some parts, my cyclocomputer read 3.5 mph as my speed, pushing my knees on my easiest gear.. . I’m surprised that I didn’t fall over sideways. Anyways, it took me ONE FULL HOUR to reach Little Sycamore. By the top of the hill, my legs started to cramp up. So rested a bit and took it easy for the rest of the downhill route back. Dino, one of the “mother hens”, I guess, was nice enough to stay alongside me to make sure that I made it. He saw me pushing my gears and suggested that I get a 12/27 cassette in the back instead of the 12/25 standard cassette that the bike came with - which would make my climbing easier. If that wasn’t enough, he suggested that I replace my crank set with a compact crank set which would be a 50/34 from the standard 53/39 that I have. I’ve made an appointment to replace the cassette for now. Hopefully, I can climb quicker?? We’ll see…
Anyways, I’ve been icing the knee 3 times a day and have been stretching the crud out of the TFL, hamstrings, and calves which seems to be helping. The knee felt good enough to go for a light spin around the lake with RL today. Hopefully, it will be in good shape by next Saturday’s ride. Woohoo~!
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