Monday, February 20th, 2006

All week I kept saying that southern CA was "better than advertised." I was partly poking fun at Rich as he had gone to great lengths to explain to me how much better it was to be living and training west coast style during the winter months. You know the story, I say, "Dude, it's 15 degrees and I can't see more than 10 feet b/c of the snow!!" and he says, "You think that's bad, I am worried I might have gotten sunburn as the 50m outdoor pool!" Typical smack talk....but today, well today, I concede defeat. After a few rain showers on Sunday, I thought our run of good weather was over. Boy, am I glad I was wrong!

Rich had been pointing out "Mt. Baldy" all week, and the Sunday AM rain meant that there was actually snow up in the mountains for the first time in a long time. It's usually pretty cold up there, but with the precipitation it was definitely looking picturesque.

We set out at about 8:30, zero-ed out the torque on our PowerTaps and started the ride. We started out on a bike path until we started climbing...the first climb was scattered over 4 miles, so it wasn't all that bad. We turned after about 8 miles and made our way over to our first--and only--water stop for the ride. We had been pounding water for the first hour, so it was time to fill up for the climb.

The main section was a 6.5 mile climb over Tour-de-France-like roads. Total switchbacks, steep inclines and every turn had you looking up to see...more up. In a word, it was AWESOME. Rich and I made the summit first and took the time to shoot some pictures of the scenery and other campers making the summit. After we re-grouped, we started along the ridge, with LA off in the distance to our right, heading for Mt. Baldy. This would be a 12 mile ride on a good day, but with snow and ice over the last few hundred feet of the first climb, we knew that reaching Mt. Baldy wasn't in the cards today. So we rolled along for about another 5 miles until we had to stop. We fueled up, took a ton of pictures, put our vests on an made for the descent...a nice 9 mile drop.

The descent was insane...the road was closed to traffic, but there were still a few pedestrians hiking and one or two other folks climbing up. Rich and the others bombed the descent like pros, leaving me clutching my top tube between my knees and using the classic "death grip" on my brake levers. Man, that can exact a serious toll on your forearms after 20 mins!!! We regrouped at the bottom, dealt with a flat tire and then rolled back to IronCamp HQ.

After another monster lunch and the requisite rest period, we did more email and then went out for a late PM tempo run. Same route as on Saturday PM, but with no dogs this time, so a lot faster. We definitely ended up going sub-7 min pace by the end. A few recovery shakes and some beers at dinner marked the end of our first IronCamp.

More photos coming soon!!!