Well today was a very tough day in and out of the saddle. We started in Pine Valley and rode straight up to Mount Laguna and then to Lake Cuyamaca and then back to Pine Valley. It was about 52 miles and seemed we never spent more then 15 minutes before there was a giant hill right in front of us. The ride up to Mount Laguna was about 10 miles and brutally tough as it was on a fire road with little shade if any.
The air out there was hot, maybe mid 80's and super dry. Trying to keep your mouth moist was tough to do even with constant drinking. The uphills were steep and long and since it was my first time out there I had no idea what lay ahead and how long some of these hills were so hard to know just how hard to push. Group 3 was the perfect pace today as I was out on the lead for almost all the way when I was not chatting it up with Danielle to see how the XX1090 team fundraising was coming along.
Going to try and get in another 50 miles in tomorrow morning up the coast where is will be much cooler then today. Some of the views from todays ride was really nice from the sunrise as I drove in to some of the mountain valleys we saw from atop of Mt Laguna. All in all it was a great hill climbing day but don't think I want to repeat another one of those for a while.
On another great note, today the XX1090 Scott & BR Cycling Team held another immunity challenge. With 8 riders left getting the immunity is huge as it keeps you safe from the Wednesday single rider cut. Today we needed to figure out how many calories were in a plastic jar containing a bunch of gels and like product. After some quick math calculations I came up with about an average of 125 calories per item and guessed there were 27 packets in the jar, for a total of 3175 calories. After talking to everyone I felt like I was way low since everyone said about 4 or 5K calories. Well as it turned out the number was 3180 and I missed by just 5 and won the immunity for another week. So gotta keep going and log some miles and figure out what I am going to do with the immunity helmet.