Riding Horse Creek

The weather was scheduled to be absolutely gorgeous today, so coach called a social group ride out in Cochrane for 11 am today. I had hummed and hawed between an 8 hour hike in the mountains or the group ride. I was keen to meet some more of my teammates and get some more time in on my bike while the weather was cooperating, so the group ride won out. We met up at a coffee shop, then headed out Highway 1A to Horse Creek Road (where we rode on Tuesday night). We were going to ride part of the loop from the Calgary Ironman 70.3 course, about 50 km. Now that there was plenty of daylight and the weather was a lot more pleasant I really had a good chance to enjoy the scenery. It is so quiet and rural, with cows, horses and hay bales all around. Folks were good about looping back to pick up stragglers and would wait at most of the intersections for people to catch up. There was barely any traffic so we were able to take up the entire lane most of the time. There are patches of road that are pretty bumpy and filled with pot holes, then there are some patches that have brand new paving on it so all in all it was pretty good riding. I felt a lot stronger on the hills than I did on Tuesday night, which was interesting. I still have some work to do to make sure that I don't get dropped on some of the uphills though...! After the ride we all met up at Starbucks for some socializing. What a fantastic way to spend a beautiful Sunday! 32.2 miles done.For anyone thinking of the Calgary 70.3 event I can definitely say that this part of the bike course is amazing. For an FYI on the elevation chart, we rode the loop in reverse.

Check out my super cyclist's tan from today. It is really only pronounced on the top part of my right leg. Nice, eh?