Epic Ride Saturdays - Laguna Canyon

Laguna Canyon

About 1.22 million years ago, Laguna Canyon began to form when the San Diego Creek started cutting through the rising San Joaquin Hills.  The Canyon runs roughly north/south for 8 miles, is a wide and shallow valley on the north end, and a deep and narrow gorge on the south end.  CA Route 133 runs straight through, and is a really popular road for cyclists.  You'll also see a lot of mountain bikes - access to the Laguna Coast Wilderness (and thus a large trail system), is found about half way through the canyon.

As usual, OC Velo met at Worthy Park in Huntington Beach and then headed south on Pacific Coast Highway picking up a bunch of additional riders.  We took PCH all the way down to Laguna, which is about a 17 mile trip through Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar and Newport Coast/Crystal Cove State Park.

The ride through Newport Coast is always great.  It's about a 4 mile stretch were the Pacific is directly  to the right and the coastal mountains are directly to the left.  The road undulates through this stretch.  But none of the climbs are particularly steep, so with a good group you can fly through this section.

The Cottages @ Crystal Cove

One of the cool points of interest along this stretch of PCH are the Crystal Cove Cottages.  Originally built in the 1920's, the 48 cottages where initially private residences.  At some point, they where all abandoned and fell into disrepair.  But eventually, they were restored and in 2006 opened up as rentals to overnight guests.  I've been down on the beach, but have never stayed in the cottages.  Apparently, a rental is pretty tricky to get - they are all booked at least a year in advance and reservations only open up once a month.  Typically, each month's allotment can sell out within hours.  One of these days Mary, Ian and I will spend a few nights there.  In the meantime, I recommend them to anyone who is looking for a slightly left-of-center California beach vacation with access to great riding, open water swimming and trail running literally just off the porch.

OC Velo

We regrouped in Laguna Beach and then turned left into the Canyon.  From the south, the first 5 miles are either false flats or gentle climbs.  But at mile 6, you are faced with a more significant climb.  It's nothing crazy, but there is no doubt in your legs that you are climbing.  The climb is about 2 miles long.  For about a mile and a half, I had been leading the group and feeling pretty good about it.  But once we hit the climb, a couple of guys pulled out of the line and shot by me.  One of them turned to me as he passed and said "Nice pull" without a hint of irony in his voice.  No good deed goes unpunished.

I took off after them, but I was never able to bridge the gap.  Instead, I hooked up with a solo rider about halfway up the climb and we traded pulls to the top.  The top is where the wind hit.

We are having pretty strong Santa Ana winds this weekend.  Santa Ana's blow from the north-east, and since they come in off the desert, they are hot.  Today they where strong.  Once I hit height of land, the wind hit me like a blast furnace from out of nowhere from about my 2 o'clock.  And they where so strong that I nearly went down.  It was probably more of a case of not expecting them, but even after I recovered and adjusted they still made for an interesting descent out of the canyon.  I met the guys who passed me at the bottom of the hill, and then we all waited for everyone else.  To a rider, everyone had a hairy "oh-my-gosh-the-wind-nearly-knocked-me-on-my-ass" story.

The rest of the ride was pretty routine, save for when the two guys who punched my ticket on the climb took off down the multi-use path in the Back Bay.  But this time I didn't let them go - I jumped on the wheel of the second guy and we tore along at about 26 MPH.  Then it was coffee at the HB Pier and the last 8 miles home.

Final Ride Stats

Distance:  55 Miles
Moving Time:  2:56
Average Speed: 18.8 MPH
Top Speed: 43.0 MPH
Climbing:  1,130 Feet

Iron Christmas Day Two

The Goal:

Wednesday 12/22 - This is a key day.  I'll need to take a longer lunch, get a ride to the gym to swim my 1.2 miles, change into running clothes, run back to work to get the rest of the running miles in, suffer through the rest of the day with just a wet-nap shower, go home and clean up, pick up Ian, go to the airport to pick up my sister and stop by the gym on the way home to pick up my swim stuff.  A stressful day, but doable.

 The Result:  No run; Swimming - 2100 yards/59:53; no wet-nap shower.

The pool.  This must be about 3 AM because it's never empty.

Today was day 2 of the Iron Christmas virtual 70.3 triathlon.  Here is the report:

I've never claimed to be a fast swimmer.  In fact, long time readers of The Road will recall that I've complained more than once about my decided lack of speed.  Yet, I've done 2100 yards much faster than this before, so I'm not really sure what happened tonight.

It may have something to do with the fact that the pool was utter chaos - kids where cannon-balling into the water aerobics lane and a guy with snorkeling gear didn't think that the lane ropes applied to him since he was swimming mostly underwater.  Though I was lucky enough to only have to split a lane, my lane partner was a woman who was wearing (what I believed to be) officially licensed Betty Boop arm floaties, while propelling herself along using a frog kick with at least an 8 foot radius.  She also had a tendency to drift towards the center line.

Needless to say, we got tangled up a few times.

I didn't check my split times but I feel like I got faster when she finally got out.  But it was too late into the swim and the damage was already done.  I'll probably be the last out of the water.  But it's totally fine because I'm used to it.

I didn't end up running the last 5 miles that I owe to the race like I had hoped to.  Finding the time today was looking grim from the start, so I made a tactical decision to move the run until tomorrow.  Tomorrow's plan is a 20 mile ride/5 mile run brick workout in and around the Back Bay of Newport.  Then I'll finish the race off on Friday morning with another ride.

I hope everyone else that's in the race is getting it done...