"Yeah! It is a hill!"

Bike! Bike! Bike!

I really feel like things are starting to come together. I know I have a challenging 2 1/2 months ahead of me, and Saturday my bike ride clicked. It felt like me and my bike weren't dating anymore.

We were now in a committed relationship.

The key to this breakthrough: Riding. Every. Day. The day after Tierra Bella I did a 30 minute recovery ride. Monday I did hill repeats---3 times up Mt. Eden. Tuesday I did brick workout with my mermaids. Wednesday 90 minute ride to mt Eden and back, and 1000 yard swim in the evening. Thursday morning was core torture and 30 minute easy ride. Friday was 35 minute easy ride.

And THEN Saturday.

For the first time ever, I climbed Montebello to the top. This is pretty challenging ride in that you climb 1900 feet in almost 4 miles. I went with my friend Lisa and we started at my place in Cupertino. We had a nice pace going and after about 35 minutes of riding we pulled over to eat and prep for the climb. I told Lisa that it's a pretty sharp right turn on Montebello road so make sure you are in a good gear to climb. I could see the turn coming and heard the Jaws theme in my head. I had no idea what this turn--heck WHAT THIS RIDE--would look like. I got in my granny gear and turned and BAM---I was going up the hill! There is a slight flat part after that first climb and then it's back to climbing. I was gaining on this woman riding up the hill.
"Hill." She said.
I smiled as I looked to the right, "Yeah! It is a hill!"

"No." She said desperately, "Is this Foothill?"

Uh oh. She is a wee bit lost.

"Uh, yeah. This is NOT foothill."

"Where is Foothill?"

Keep in mind that I am still climbing this long mother of a hill and she wants me to be all GPS?

My directions went like this (in a very out of breath voice).
"Turn...Around....stop sign. HUFF PUFF Go. Left. becomes...foot...hill."

And she was gone.

So we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. We stopped to drink. And climbed. There was a mean hill towards the end and then finally we saw the gate closing off the road. WE MADE IT!

And I felt good. Much better than last week's Tierra Bella climb.

We braced ourselves to go back down. I am not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous. I hadn't gone down this hill before and was not quite sure what to expect. I used my brakes a lot and made mental note to practice descents in the future. I saw Picchetti Winery and shouted, "Lisa we are almost there!" And sure enough, we hit the stop sign and continued on to climb Mt Eden. We turned around and rode back to Cupertino and had turkey sandwiches at Subway. Best. Sandwich. Ever.

I was on cloud nine the rest of the day. I climbed Montebello...a road that scared the you know what out of me. A road I never thought I would be strong enough to go up. And it was hard. I had that feeling of having nothing left in my muscles. There is something really scary to me about climbing a hill, giving it your all and not knowing if you can keep going. I was scared of the unknown, of what would happen if I pushed past that pain. And you know what happened?

I got to the top of the hill.

So, Sunday I woke up early, did a 1500 yard swim. Then headed to work to celebrate our amazing volunteers. I came back that afternoon for a 25 minute recovery spin. Hubby came home a day early today from his Grand Canyon motorcycle ride and I knew I needed to ride today AND spend time with him. So I hopped on the trainer and powered through a 40 minute interval ride. By the time I hit my third interval I was on fire. My husband looked over at me while I was pushing to a 93% heart rate. "Is that your interval face?" he asked.
"YESSS!" I growled.

I got off my bike and put on my running clothes. I told Hubby to meet me at our sushi place in 15 minutes. I decided to make it a brick day AND run to dinner date with hubby. My run felt AMAZING. I have no idea why, but I had energy and managed a fairly good pace.

Up next--more of the same and getting ready for a 100 miler in Folsom this Saturday. My weight loss is going slow---it's taking forever to get to the 20 pound mark. I haven't really focused on the Weight Watchers these past couple weeks. Now it's about the balance of ramping up my exercise and staying on plan. And I am trying to not focus too much on that dang number in the scale because I got myself up Montebello, and I am pretty proud of my body for doing that.