Lookout Mountain Conqured!

So I posted on Jill's ( Run with Jill ) blog last week that I had a long ride to do this weekend and would she be interested in joining me? She quickly replied yes she was up for it! I've never met Jill and was excited at the prospect... that is until she suggested we ride the 62 mile course of the Denver Century coming up in a few weeks, which includes Lookout mountain. You may recall that in a post from a few weeks ago I took a picture looking up the mountain wondering how I would possibly be able to make it up this mountain. So at this point while I was still excited to meet Jill the idea of the ride was quite frightening to me, "fine" I said "go ahead and make me face my fear". So we met up to head out on our adventure, after we spent several minutes deciding how we would dress. Although the day was warm we really didn't know what we would encounter being out so long. We rode along pretty easily just chatting and getting to know each other. We were definitely out for saddle time and not speed. Jill says she is a runner not a cyclist and me...well I'm just playing dress up and having fun. Before long we reached the start of the real climb.

Jill playing with the maps.

UP we go!

We studied it a little had a Cliff shot stripped off another layer (we had removed one at an earlier stop) took the above pics and decided we might as well get started. Turns out I had every reason to be scared of this climb. In fact some where around now I told Jill that way back when, when I was learning to drive they made me drive this road, I was just as scared then as I was today.

The picture above was at our 1st rest break on the climb. I believe at this point I asked another rider if we were 1/2 way...she said no we still had quite bit to go...I blocked the part out about how many more miles.... So we just kept plugging away and I gotta tell you if I didn't have a triple I don't know if I would have made it. As we got closer to the top there were at least some flats (or what seemed like flats) between the inclines. Twice these crazy kids went flying by us on skateboards. I can not imagine how fast they were going.

Success! We made it to the top! In this picture if you look close (click on it to make it bigger) I was down by the football field when I took the picture here looking up at the M and we were now above that!

As you can see we had started putting layers back on. It was pretty cold up on top!

Jill and I

After some picture taking and admiring the gorgeous view we soon got back on our bikes to head down. It was pretty chilly going down the hill, in fact it felt colder then I ever did on my ride last weekend.

Jill took this photo of me as we were riding by Red Rocks Amphitheater
Jill studying the map again.

Once down we had a some confusion on where we were suppose to go. We headed up one step which turned out to be incorrect and had some of the most difficult cross winds I've ever dealt with. You literally had to lean into them to keep from going over it was crazy! And then of course since it was wrong we had to turn around and go back through them. Eventually found our way to the bike path that would take us back home. There were some pretty good head winds but nothing like the crosswinds.

Elevation profile not including the first 8ish miles when I had forgotten to start my Garmin.

This picture pretty much sums up how we felt having just finished 67 miles in 5:20 ride time which was both Jill and I's longest ride to date. Jill was smart enough to have a hat handy. Hey it was a tuff ride! :)