82m: San Diego Century

Team Climb On! rode the San Diego Century yesterday to support the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

It is the mission of the Challenged Athletes Foundation to provide opportunities and support to people with physical disabilities so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics. The Challenged Athletes Foundation believes that involvement in sports at any level increases self-esteem, encourages independence and enhances quality of life.

I really dig how CAF views people with disabilities as potential competitive athletes. They have certainly expanded my views of what people with disabilities can accomplish.

Mark, Andy and I rolled out for a late start at around 7:45am. I still feel like I’m in a rebuilding mode so I didn’t push the pace very hard, Mark and Andy were happy to oblige. Of course, there were the town signs… If you’ve ridden with Mark, you know he likes to sprint for any town signs we encounter. It’s a fun game and we usually go for them, trying to earn “green jersey points”. If Mark is anything, he’s a world-class sprinter so I don’t really win very many of them. If you get withing 500m of a town sign with Mark on your back wheel, you will lose the sign, guaranteed.

And, of course, Mark is always on your back wheel. It just doesn’t make sense to him to take turns at the front. So, my experience for a large portion of yesterday’s ride was riding at the front of the group, taking all the wind and having Mark jump out of my slipstream every so often to resoundingly beat me in a town sign sprint.

We dropped Andy off at Pizza Port to save us a table with about 5 miles to go. I had been helping Andy make it back so now absolved of my team responsibilities, I decided it was time to put the hurt on my sprinter friend.

I got back on the front and picked up the pace to 20-something. As we approached the Solana Beach sign, Mark jumped out for another 263mph sprint and easily took the sign (again). He sat up, waiting for my luscious slipsteam, but as I passed him, I went a little wide, put it on full gas and gapped him. I was going 31mph on the flats, crossing the lagoon and Mark did a fantastic job chasing me down and getting back on my wheel. As soon as I saw his shadow on my wheel, I eased up a little to get my HR back under control, crossed an intersection and went full gas again. This is how you beat Mark. He’s got tremendous power but can only use it a certain number of times before he must recover. I was not sprinting, just going to 95%+ HR for a much longer duration than his normal sprint. I only needed this second burst to pop him permanently. I put my HRM at 95% and zoomed the last couple of miles to the finish line alone.

I crossed the line in an easy gear without worrying about a roadrunner zooming out of my shadow for the “win”.

Team Climb On! Official Standings
San Diego Century Bike Tour

Yellow Jersey (overall): A. Asch
Green Jersey (points): M. Wineman
Red Jersey (most guts): A. Karydes

Other notables:
D. Mozealous: DNF
M. Firger: DNF
C. Wakefield: DNF
M. Colebank: DNF

Tagged as: Charity Rides, Team Climb On!