Had a restless night sleeping, I was up around midnight, couldn't get back to sleep due to jet lag, so I watched some TV, ate a little food, and read. I thought about how to use battery backups for the indoor security cameras as well as the WiFi gateway. Eventually, I got back to sleep and then woke up a little before 6:00. Unfortunately, I went back to sleep, only to way up at 6:50 and have to rush to get to the starting point for the Bisikleta ride. I took the shortest, straight route and got there around 7:25, but I wasn't the only one who was late. In fact, I was the first one there, other than Ray, who was at the Starbucks getting coffee. Eventually, others showed up, so that when we rolled out around 7:50, here were the riders: Ray, Jed, Arnold, Joey, and Fritz. We kept a pretty easy pace on the way out, and generally throughout this ride. Over to San Dieguito Rd, turning there and heading down into Fairbanks Ranch. I was at the back, sweeping, and I noticed some raindrops and threatening skies as we descended. Not a great sign. When we got onto the flats, the rain stopped, but we still had to watch out for wet roads and lots of debris on the side. We had decent, not fast, pace line across the flats, then took El Camino Real to get to Via de la Valle. This stretch of road was particularly treacherous in the bike lane, and at one point my wheel skidded as I ran over or through something. But I stayed upright, and we made it down to the freeway, after which it was much better. To PCH, turning left there to keep it a shorter ride as we rode into and through Del Mar, again at easy pace. The group decided to ride up Torrey Pines, so we headed down into the park and had a short break by the restrooms at the bottom of the inside route. I started up this route slowly but eventually pushed my pace a little bit to catch the others, all except for Fritz, who spent much of the day in or near the front. Arnold followed me right up the climb. We got to the top, and Ray advocated for going down and up again, this time on the outside. So we did. I rode down at the back with Joey, then back up the climb with her as well, sharing a little about our trip to Japan. She and Zac had recently been in Hawaii and did an epic ride there, where they ran out of water about halfway through and had to refill their bottles from a sketchy bathroom tap. Down the hill again and over to Carmel Valley Rd, where we turned (again, I was riding at the back for most of this time) and rode over to the 56 bike path. On the stretch back to the Carmel Valley Rd intersection, I was riding closer to the front and pushing my pace somewhat. From there, we had another pace line toward Camino del Sur. It started to break up on the last little climb, and Fritz and I rode away from the others. At the turn there, I was back to the rear of the group until we got to the little climb up to Carmel Valley Rd. Ray was riding with Joey and talking with her, so, knowing that she wasn't going to get dropped, I rode ahead. The others were pretty far out in front, and I had to put in a pretty big effort to catch up to them before we got back to San Dieguito Rd. From there, it was the four of us riding together for a while, with me following Fritz in the front. He kept his foot on the gas, and it was another big effort for me to stay on his wheel while the others fell back. We rode back to the starting point together. I was surprised that my legs held out without cramping; granted it wasn't a fast-paced ride, but there were several places where I was pushing pretty hard for my current fitness level. Stayed around until everybody got back, talked to the others, including Joey about getting together with her and Zac for a Thursday run at the UCSD track. That sounds like fun, will have to plan and do that soon. I took the new default route back home, pretty slowly. Again, I was glad that my legs held out the whole way and that we ended up having pretty decent weather, after the initial rain scare.
Avg speed = 15.6 mph (15.7 mph). Total mileage = 46.7 mi
Bisikleta route avg speed = 15.9 mph
Avg power = 134 W. Weighted avg power = 170 W
Total elevation gain = 3030' (3340')
Avg heartrate = 120 bpm (Coospo)
Relative Effort = 73 (78)
Training Load = 195
Intensity = 77%
Was just a little hungry when I got home around 11:00, early for a Saturday ride. I ate a little lunch, then worked out in the backyard for a while, starting the annual spring weeding process again. I'm disappointed by the apparent failure of the ground cloth and bark that we put in to stop weeds from sprouting up through it. Not sure what to do next, maybe apply another, impermeable, layer of ground cloth over it? After that exercise, I was tired again, so I had another nap, again a longish one, and felt better afterwards. I asked the Claude AI if it could help me get my Yahoo Mail account added to Outlook, and after one iteration it was able to point out where I had failed in previous times. So, success! During the day I also set up the security camera with a battery pack to see how long it will last. Having that camera on battery involves a lot fewer unsightly cables to have to deal with. And I talked to Ben in the early evening about Mom and her current situation. Hoping to get together with him and his family on Saturday some time.
