Week 3: Friday Morning Ride

The sun wasn't ready for me on Friday morning as I rolled out of the house at 6am , in hopes of getting about 2 hours of riding in before work. I'm currently living near the Arboretum, so it's natural to hop right on 360 for a perfect challenging ride. The only problem? When it's pitch black and you don't have a working light on your bike, the ride is less than perfect. It's crazy and dangerous and I discovered that almost immediately. I couldn't see anything directly in front og me. God forbid had there been rocks, glass, or even road kill, I would've crashed. The only time I had visibility was when cars were coming behind me and gave me some temporary headlights. So, I'm a determined risk-taker, but I'm not stupid. I wasn't about to continue this venture in the dark, especially on the hills of 360. I also wasn't going to go home and quit. There is an apartment complex at the corner of 360 and 2222 called the Gables Grandview. Now, I'm getting used to training on roads that have words like, "mountain," "view," "peak," ridge," "scenic," in them so I knew what I was in for with "Grand View." I turned in the well-lit complex driveway and it immediately began a nice steady uphill climb. My original thought was to sit for a while until the sun peaked over the horizon. It was about 6:15am and I thought for sure it would happen at any moment. Well, instead of sitting, I proceeded to do hill repeats up and down this drive for the next 35 minutes until I felt that it was safe to proceed--about 6:55am. Of course, by this time, Austin was waking up and heading to work. I rode South on 360 and took in the bridge, the climb up Riverbend Church and the hill climb to Bee Caves. At that point, I decided to turn around and head on home. I ended up riding for about 1:45 with the Hill Repeats included.

Maybe next time I'll just sleep in a little bit longer...Nahhhhh...