week 6-Palos Verdes, 42 miles

Description on the pictures: You can see beautiful homes in PV that are mansions. It reminded me of the villa in Farmville =). The hill picture is a climb we did for 2 miles up to Mary Mount College. What comes up must come down. The ride downhill was exhilirating. The bikers picture is my group doing paceline riding. The chapel picture is a famous place newlyweds get married since it's overlooking PV.

This training was the most challenging yet. The climb was grueling. I had to have a mantra in my head "I'm a mountain goat, I can do this!" and I had to think "One pedal at a time." Images popped in my head of my brother during his chemo, radiation, bone marrow transplant, and surgery. I thought of our patients in CHLA. I thought of my aunt who is dying of pancreatic cancer; Anything that will keep me focused. There was a time I wanted to stop pedaling. I thought of my other teammates who had already finished their climb. If they can do it, so can I. Finally, I saw a sign of the college, our final destination to the top of the hill. I was 2nd place out of 5 in our group and two were our assistant coaches. I was very proud of myself. The ride downhill was the funnest.

During our ride, we encountered a dead snake. I shrieked when I saw it since it caught me off guard. We also saw two dead possums that had that rotten corpse smell. It was aweful!

My drive in PV felt like a roller coaster ride; up and down, up and down! I also had that queasy feeling in my stomach going down the road. It's a, "Whee" feeling!

This was the best training!