Kickoff and 1st Ride

The season has officially started :o) woohoo. I am excited to be working out again and I'm really excited now to take on the new challenge. Scared? yep still scared but I love our coaches and our team so here we go.

Saturday was our Kickoff celebration at the St. Mary's Cathedral Event Center. It was a new location for us but it was set up nicely and all went off well. I met Meenu at Lake Merritt at 7am, we grabbed coffee at Peet's and then headed in to the city. We mingled with the Alumni for a while and then we went over to our post, the Fundraising Clinic Table. We were only there a short bit and then were re-assigned to the New Registration table.

At 10am the main program started in the big room and we listened to the MC who is also an Alumni and former LLS employee and then to a team honoree. After the main program in the big room was done we headed into our individual sport rooms to meet with our coaches, mentors, captains and meet the new participants. We had a great turnout and we have some fun people on the team. It's always fun to meet the newbies who have never done anything like this before. They are nervous, they are excited and eager to get started and see what it is they signed up for. After it was all over Olivia, Phil and I headed out and stoppe at CPK for a much needed lunch, we were all starving. The rest of Saturday Rocky and I just hung out at home and relaxed since it was such and icky rainy day.

Sunday was our first ride of the season. We met in Pinole at 8am and the day was filled with lots of information. It was a busy morning for me since I'm also trying to learn but at the same time I have to do my web captain duties. It's okay though it all keeps me on my toes. Everyone got fitted on their bikes, Coach Cyd went over some information on clothes and gear and also the rules of the road. Coach Kerry led us through some stretching and then we were on our way.

I decided to ride in the slowest group. I've never ridden with this team and since I'm as slow as a snail I didn't want to be to confident and think that I could ride with the faster group. I am happy to say that I am not the slowest and that rididng in this group was actually a little hard because I wasn't going at a pace that I could actually feel good at. During some points we were going so slow I couldn't pedal cause I didn't want to slam into the mentor that was leading our group. I have officially moved myself up to the next group :O) I will ride with the next group this coming Saturday and see how I do there.

Our route was an out and back of about 12 miles which inlcuded going up Mama Bear but our group was told to turn around at the base of Mama Bear (Three Bears refers to the section on Bear Creek Road which has three climbs called Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. From Alhambra Valley Road, Mama Bear is first, Baby Bear is in the middle, and Papa Bear is last) and not do it. I was very happy at the moment not to have to do it but now I'm bummed I didn't since it also meant I didn't do the full mileage. I will stop being a baby and push myself as hard as I can from now on. I am not the slowest and there is no reason either why I shouldn't be doing the full mileage. No more being a baby :o)

It was a good ride though and I felt great. I am also really enjoying being web captain and I've gotten good feed back from my teammates about our website, yipee!