Taper Weekend (Rain Kinda Helped with That)

One week before Solvang Double Century, and with all the training in previous weeks, I really should taper the weekend before.  With the rain in California this past week, it kind of helped force that onto me.

I was all prepared to spend a weekend on the trainer, but I really hate being on the trainer.  It is really boring, especially if you want to be on there for an hour at a time.  The sufferfest videos are great, but even then, I probably last at best, 50 minutes, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the heavy rain subside by the time I woke up on Saturday.

I waited till the grounds dried a little bit, and took a chance and took a spin out. I was all decked out in winter weather clothing, with weather-proof booties, thermal gloves, skull cap covering my ears ... just hope I wouldn't get too wet out there.

It was St. Patrick's Day, and although I am not Irish, I figured I should get into the spirit, and the only green jersey I could find was an old LA Sheriff - Chevolet jersey.  I originally bought this when I was living back in LA (> 13 years ago), and it still fits me pretty good.  As my friend Bill says, "That's older than old".  Hey, it's green.

Since I didn't want to get caught out in the rain too much, and I am tapering, I already decided this would be a short ride, so up Montebello to the school, then down to Mt. Eden, hit Saratoga Summit, then back home.  Climb up Montebello wasn't too bad ... no bad wind to speak of, and it wasn't too bad at all ... really.

After finishing Montebello, Mt. Eden, and Saratoga Summit, I was heading south and was contemplating doing one last hill, Kennedy/Shannon loop.  However, as I was heading down, I felt a few drops, so I decided to head for home.  Closer to home, I'm still feeling a few drops here, a few drops there, but nothing really bad.  So I've already decided to call it a day, so I was hoping that it would at least have a downpour, so my quitting effort would be legitimate.  But no, it was like the sky was spitting at me.  Oh well, time to get in and warm up.

Sunday, I figured it would be a better day.  I was going to go up Hwy 9, and do my Saratoga Gap/Page Mill loop.  As I went out riding, it started raining, and more than it was on Saturday.  It's a good thing I had my Goretex jacket on ... I brought it for the feel of carrying that jacket in my jersey on a ride, but didn't think I'd actually have to use it.  No worries though, but I did decide to alter my route.  Plus, it was really windy just on the flat section.  The prospect of descending down Page Mill on wet roads, and gusty winds, was not appealing to me.  I headed towards Woodside, and the rain would be on and off (even to make the roads pretty wet).  I decided to take a chance and go up Old La Honda.


OLH was nice ... the rain stopped just in time for me to do this climb.  I figured this would be a mellow climb up, then head home ... that would be my taper weekend.

Even though it wasn't raining, I wanted to keep my jacket on ... I didn't want to stop, put my jacket on, while I'm in the middle of a climb.

There were a number of people coming down OLH.  In general, I don't like descending OLH, because there are a lot of people that are climbing OLH, and secondly, descending Hwy 84 into Woodside is a great descent.


At the summit, it wasn't too bad at all.  I've been up here, where the fog was really thick, and you couldn't see anything.  At least this day, there was good visibility ...

However, as I descended down to the store on 84&35, it was really cold.  The air temperature was around 46 F, and add wind chill, it was freakin' cold.  I'm not looking forward to the descent into Woodside, as there was no sun to really keep me warm either.  It's a good thing I have my booties on.

By the time I got back, I logged in 48 miles ... not too bad for a rain soaked weekend.  Was a bit windy too, but it's good for training for bad weather conditions for Solvang.

So am I ready for Solvang?  Well, I'm not in the shape I would like to, but at least I've got the base miles leading up to it:

4 weeks Prior:   74 mi/4923 ft, 60 mi/5091ft
3 weeks prior:  110 mi/6278 ft, 38 mi/2256 ft
2 weeks prior:  100 mi/7282 ft, 32 mi/3019 ft
1 week prior:     31 mi/2313 ft, 48 mi/2900 ft

Solvang, here I come ... can't wait for Saturday!