PREP:  Take the 1st Tuesday Q (hills) from Crabcakes. Segment hunt the “west side”. Found one!

WEATHER: 61F and 100% humidity. It was so foggy and wet my fingers were pruned at the end of the ride, that’s no lie.

6:00AM: I forgot the 5 core F3 principles. Oops. Welcome back now DR Smarty Pants. Crabcakes did the 5AM EC (@ 20.4 mph!) but had to leave. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Skipped. I get so nervous 😩 

PRAYERS / PRAYER REQUESTS: 

Brutus M surgery Dec 13

Safe ride

THE THANG: 1st Tuesday (hills, well just hill today). YHC loves taking the pax over to the west side! Segment hunt was successful (“River Lake Run”) – it’s a 1.69 mile backroad segment off Linger lodge to the big SR70 Wal-Mart along I75. Seems to be a forgotten segment, with the current Strava KOM (King Of the Mountain) having the segment crown since 2013. YHC challenged the cycling pax to take the crown, with current standard set @ 23.9mph / 4:16. 

Departure from Wawa and the regular route down Lorraine, Hidden River, LWR Blvd, Clubhouse and through Braden Woods. Per pre-blast, the pax scouted the run once for dangers (Known were speed tables, sharp right at stop sign and end point right AT a stop sign 🛑.  Discovered additional dangers were wet conditions, kids waiting for a school bus – and eminent school bus – and more traffic than anticipated.).

Ripken had to head back after the scout run. Remaining 5 pax re-grouped at the top of the I75 overpass (had to do the hill once) for the final plan and to get some speed before the segment start. 

It was a little iffy at the left turn to the segment start, but all pax hit it HARD, with all 5 pax achieving PR’s* (all times 4:55 or less and all speeds 20.7mph or faster).  3 pax are now in the top 9 all time for this segment: Pincher #5 (@ 4:24 only 8 seconds from KOM), Brutus #6 riding Pincher’s rear wheel (4:26) and a really impressive lone run by Enron now #9 (4:30). (* for some, this was the first run at this segment.) 

Pax regrouped in front of Texas Roadhouse and Pincher escorted all except Brutus back to Wawa (Brutus broke off @ Linger Lodge for early return home). 

SUMMARY: Got a little lucky with traffic timing. We WILL hit this segment again and load the top 10 with F3.