San Francisco Final Day

Today was the final day of orientation at San Francisco.

We woke up a little earlier at 5:30, loaded up all our luggage up on the vans. From University of San Francisco, where we stayed for the past few days, we took off to the Golden Gate Bridge, roughly a 2 mile ride. After arriving there, we had a nice breakfast and were greeted by a nice crowd of friends and family. The CEO of PUSH America gave quite an inspirational speech followed by a prayer. The entire morning was pretty cold, I was shivering nonstop. On top of that, I was pretty nervous. Today was the first day of actual riding and I had no idea what to expect.

As we rode across the golden gate bridge, much of my apprehension and shivers started to disappear. The main objective started to simplify: just continue to pedal.

After we crossed the bridge, we separated into 4 cyclists pace lines. In my group was Rudy, John, and Marshall.

We breezed through the first 30 miles, much of a repeat of the day before. The day was just perfect. The suns rays shinned on our backs but there was that easy breeze that kept us cool. The best way to put it, is that it would like we were in a video game, where we picked a level: Sausalito, California, and then raced through the streets of the peaceful but gorgeous downtown.

We stopped off at a park for lunch and had the usual Crew Chief Lunch, a deli sandwich and chips. Me and couple guys tried to optimize our sandwich but putting peanut butter and honey in between the turkey sandwich. Sounds disgusting but, ah, its filling I guess.

After lunch was a lot tougher, although there was less hills on the terrain. I, more or less, struggled. I one part, I was having a mental block, something that has happening to me, training wise, since last summer. I managed to get through out until the 50th mile. I hit a pothole, and my rear wheel just got out of wack and got a little bent. The crew tried to fix it, but no luck...I needed to get a new wheel. In its defense, the wheel was pretty old. I end up getting racked at the 50th mile headed to the bike store to get a new rear wheel. On the positive note, I didn't get injured.

After the ride, the group went to a little league baseball banquet. Now this isn't a regular little league baseball league. It's actually a league composed of people with disabilities. Everyone was very kind and treated us like kings. All the participants had huge smiles, and you could tell we would making their day just with our presence. I met this 25 year old named Casey. The poor guy lost his mother, his caretaker, a few years ago, and you could tell all he really wanted was some company. More importantly, all he wanted was a friend. Now, I'm by no means perfect but to see him smile ever for a few minutes put me on the verge of tears.

The banquet also had great food. The fruit there was amazing. I've never tasted fresher fruit in my life. Literally, every fruit, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, grapes, It was all so fresh and so perfect. We left from that friendship visit with our bellies filled, and more importantly, with smiles on our faces.

After a long day, we left back for lodging. Lucky for us, we are staying at a Best Western, which guarantees a hot shower. I swear, they're spoiling us.