On a warm Saturday morning at Rancho, several Ironteam members tackled the Run to Ridge. 10 miles of mostly up (Coach Dan says there’s really only one hill) to the top of Black Mountain then a leisurely jog down Montebello Rd to Ridge Winery. There the team was met with open arms, a lavish spread of cheese, crackers, fruit, wine and cool, cool water.

“2 hours for a 10 mile run?” was overheard by Boston Marathoner Andy Brewer, “No way it’ll take that long, 1.5 hours tops”. Well, the one hill the coaches said was on the course was 10 miles long. And it got tougher with the hot temps. The views were beautiful, the scenery stunning and the picnic fabulous.

On Sunday morning the Ironteam went North to take on the famous water hills of Redwood Shores lagoon. Into their wetsuits the team climbed then dove into the warm murky water.

“To the bridge and beyond” ordered Coach Mike.

After returning from the bridge, the team mounted their trusty steeds and went spinning up Ralston Ave to the 280 bike path overpass. Not content with just the one hill for a warmup, Aurora Bibb decided to go past the turn, down the hill and then turned at the bottom.

“Nothing beats an exhilarating hill climb at the beginning of a ride” stated Aurora, “Especially when you missed the first turn”.

Rattlesnake Queen Christine Johnson proceeded down the bike path and took out the baby rattlesnake that was threatening everyone.

With their fears calmed, the riders then took on Kings Mountain Road. Up the twisty road, thru the towering redwoods and across Skyline to the rest stop at the top. After a brief respite from the climb, the team then continued on towards the coast and the infamous Tunitas Creek Rd.

Pedaling thru La Honda and San Gregori, the Ironteam set their sights on attacking the Tunitas climb. Once again Aurora Bibb was not satisfied with just doing Tunitas.

“Come on Al” she said to Big Al Larson. “Let’s go up and down Hwy 1 for a few miles then we’ll take on Tunitas”.

Up the team went again, past towering redwoods, across potholes in the road and with hints of banjo music in the air they reached the top.

From there it was an 18 mile downhill cruise to the finish. Well, except for that climb on the bike path to Ralston. But at least the rattlesnakes were gone thanks to CJ.

All in all - a tremendous weekend effort by the Ironteam proving they are well on their way to their goals for Lake Placid and Canada.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm and is filed under IT2007 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.