I LOVE SAN DIEGO! Maybe it has something to do with the 12 hours of rain during our drive here, the 1 AM hail storm, or the snow/rain that I left behind in Michigan. Regardless, the past week has been amazing- and we haven’t even started the ride yet!

This week has been our R4WH Retreat. We have been reviewing lectures, preparing for our upcoming journey, getting to know one another, and training, of course. We’ve spent a lot of time riding along the Pacific Coast Highway. We are all very appreciative of the bike lanes that San Diego offers! I can’t get enough of the sunshine and ocean-side riding!

I want to share my most memorable riding thus far. Thursday, after our group ride along the Pacific Coast Highway, a group of us decided to do an extra climb to Mount Soledad. Dave had informed everyone that this would be a short, steep, optional climb. Up for the challenge, I decided to join the group and see what this Mount Soledad was all about. I knew it was going to be a tough climb when I tried to shift to an easier gear only to find that I was already there. Not standing on the pedals was not an option- if I was climbing any slower I would have been moving backwards. Thankfully, I had Bobby ahead of me which inspired me to make it up without stopping. Thanks Bobby!! Eight of us met up at the top for a panoramic view of San Diego- totally worth it! Way to go team! It turns out this was a 800-foot climb, 1.5 miles. I wouldn’t exactly call it a short climb, Dave.

Even more impressive, the following day we decided to tackle Mount Soledad again, but this time with the whole group. Everyone made it to the top!

Tomorrow we begin our cross country ride- only 3,700 miles to go!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 5:30 am by jen and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.