Sauvie's Island Ride

Monday I had the day off, so I went to Sauvie's Island to ride with a group from work. Frank, Steve K, Kriss and myself met up just over the bridge (top picture) by a store. It was slightly overcast and chilly, but dry. We started clockwise on the island loop road. It was a social pace ride so we just sauntered along through the farms with me mooing at the cows. When we came to the beach road, we turned and did an out and back to almost the beach. Hadn't seen Kriss since the Seattle to Portland ride so it was nice catching up with her. Steve K said we should start a base tri club, I agree. Frank wanted caramel apples, so we stopped at a couple of the pumpkin farms and at the third one found caramel apples. I had a latte and pastry instead of the apples. While we were eating a guy from my shop with his family showed up to buy a pumpkin, small world. The workers said the traffic on Sunday was unbelievable, three hours to get off the island with a policeman directing traffic. I think there's 4 pumpkin patches with corn mazes on the island. Frank and his son and Kriss and myself are running the Run Like Hell 5K this coming weekend, so I asked Kriss what her 5K pace was knowing she's faster than me and maybe I could pace her and do a pb. She said she would just run at whatever pace Frank's son Ian ran at- that hadn't even occurred to me! So I guess Sunday will be a social run. Stats for the ride- 23.4 miles and an average of 14.1.

Beaches ride

When I got home it wasn't even 2 o'clock- I wouldn't even have to be at work yet if it were a workday. Anyway, I decided to go to Beaches restaurant in Vancouver to do a training ride with the Headhunters tri club. My friend Kevin was painting his house so he couldn't make it so it was just Denise (swim teacher) myself and Bill. Bill is an older guy who arrived in a Porsche with the bike in the back. Denise said he has a plane and flys to all his races. He told us about a double century next weekend in California he's doing then a couple weeks of slight taper and then the Silverman full ironman. We sauntered through downtown Vancouver at 9-11 mph talking about various races and then once on Vancouver Lake road we it kicked out.
I was in the lead at first and set the tempo into the wind at 21-22. We took turns in a three person paceline at 19.5-22 all the way to the end of the road. Turned around and did 20-24 back to where town starts again. Great practice, must find a way next spring to be able to do this ride more often. Afterwards, Bill left and Denise and I went in to happy hour for shrimp salads and diet Pepsi. Stats for this ride- 24.5 at a 16.6 average. For a total of 47.9 miles for the day. Drove out to Vancouver lake afterwards and took a picture of the lake and a part of the road with cows.