Nicasio-Tomales Ride

Jim enjoying the break at Tomales. More images for everyone but especially for Jean who is freezing his butt off in Minnesota - I think he likes it that way though.

Okay I'm an idiot, the boiler was for the heat in the building. Well since I don't use my heaters it's not really a problem.

This was last Saturday. Got some great riding in Northern Marin. We started in the valley but made our way to Tomales Bay and from there following the waters edge back to Stinson Beach and our start point by the Nicasio Reservoir. JP and Janet led the ride. It was perfect weather wise; sun, no major wind and cool temperatures. I had never done this ride before, only sections of it, it was great to do bike a new route - new for me anyway. Instead of riding from the city we drove to our starting point, about 25 miles north of San Francisco. I caught a ride with my friend Helen. Skipping all the traffic and stop signs was a blessing. If I had a car I would drive North for my bike rides often. It wasn't a total hammer ride but there were some hammer moments and we covered some 60+ miles. A lot of green, unlike the East Bay, the hills here stay green all year round. Some farm animals; horses, cows and sheep. If you've read my "6 weird things about me" post, you'd know that farm animals make me hungry. Unfortunately a lot of dead skunks as well. You don't always seem but you can always smell them. In my excitement in starting out the ride I forgot both my water bottles in Helen's car. Mike pointed it out to me half an hour into the ride, a minute later I swallowed a bug. It would have gone down a lot better with some water! JP was nice enough to give me one of his water bottles and that kept me until we pulled in to Tomales Bay 2.5 hours later. It was filled with energy drink which was even better.

The best part was when we were heading home from Tomales Bay to Pt. Reyes. Hills on the left, water on the right. There were six of us. JP hammered out first, followed by Mike, I follow next, follwed by Janet, Helen and Jim. It's one nice 16-18 mile section with short rollers. I followed both JP and Mike's lead and cranked away tucked in the aero position. Went hard on the downhill sections using the speed to carry me up and over just so I can repeat the process again on the next downhill. It was a lot fun, tiring but fun, like coming down a sweet downhill technical section on the trails. Go hard, breathe and enjoy. I did have to un-tuck several times just so I could rest, stretch my back and spin up some of the hills. With all the miles running it was really nice to be able to experience that kind of speed, to be able to cover so much distance so quickly with the same amount of energy. Definitely a good change from all the running.

Now it's raining again, it is still winter. Rained hard today, suppose to rain tomorrow and possible showers on Saturday as well. You know what that means, nice muddy trails on Sunday and this weekend I'm taking them back to Marin, to Muir Beach to be exact. Heading over with a new friend to pre-run the course at Muir Beach. She's training for Boston. Training for Boston but has no qualms about running some muddy hill trails on Sunday. I need more of those kind of friends. So I'm back down on my mileage again this week, I only need 2.5-3 hours for my long run. Looking forward to the break. Easy ride on Saturday, short run on Sunday.