Very Timely Update {rolls eyes}

I know that I said I would try and give nightly updates of the ride (that happened almost a month ago), but it turns out that after you've physically exhausted yourself each day it's tough to work up the effort to do much besides take a shower, curl up on the bed and weep. So I'll give a bit of a rundown here on events. And thank you again for you readers who donated and helped me be able to do this.

First off, a short rundown of what the ride actually turned out to be during that 7 days:

• 500 miles traveled
• 22 thousand feet of climbing
• 35 thousand calories burned
• 2 extremely wicked saddle sores (more on that later)

Needless to say it was, without a doubt, the most physically demanding thing that I've ever done. To be honest, I thought that I was in pretty good shape for this ride. Turns out, I'm not nearly as strong of a rider as I thought I was. There were guys on this ride that destroyed me as far as riding ability. To be fair to myself, most of those guys were either A) college kids who are on their school's triathlon team or B) guys who have been riding much, much longer than I have. But it was a bit discouraging to be one of the last 5 or 6 people in at the end of the day. But I completed every day no matter how badly I wanted to quit on a couple days. About a third of the whole group didn't ride each day to completion.

Regarding the days that I wanted to give up, there were two of them. One was the day going through Big Sur (Day 3). If you're not familiar with that area, it's a beautiful, forested stretch along the Central California coast. But it's insanely hilly spread over about a 50 mile stretch. The elevation climbed that day was over 5K feet in a 70 mile ride. That was the day I first started really noticing saddle sores (turns out my seat alignment got jacked up at the end of day 1 and didn't notice until half way through the day). Let me tell you, when you've got to do 70-80 miles a day and your ass is raw, it is not good. Luckily, I had a couple ride partners with me to talk me through the last 10 miles of the worst of the climbing and I finished.

The second day I fantasized about quitting was the last day. We were going from Dana Point to San Diego, it was hotter than hell and my ass was just pure mechanism of fucking misery at that point. I could not, for the life of me, find a comfortable part of the saddle. It was excruciating. I managed to make it though, even if I was the last guy in. And I have to tell you, it was worth every bit of cursing, anger and agony when we rode up to the picnic where the hemophilia foundation was having an event. It was great to see all the appreciative people that came out to cheer us in to the final stop and express their thanks for raising money for their families. It made me feel really good about what we all had done. Goofy, but true.

Nonwithstanding my whininess, seeing the Cali Coast by bike is specfuckingtacular. You don't really realize how much of the scenery and awesomeness of a place you miss while flying by in a car. On a bike, you get to see it at a much slower pace and much more closely than you ever could by car. I can't recommend enough seeing some majestic part of our country on top of a bike, it's a whole new experience.

Starting next week, I'll share some of the funnier stuff that happened during the trip and maybe some more of the daily break-downs of the ride.

Almost Time To Ride...Or Die

Here's a little update on the charity ride I'm doing next week. As of the end of this weekend, I've reached my fund raising goal of $3K ($3200 actual) so I don't have to worry about having to pay for any of the lodging or making up a shortfall on my goal. Whew! And a big thank you to everyone who donated, I really appreciate it.

As far as the training goes, this weekend was also the last big push before taking it easy this week leading up to the ride. Since I decided to actually do the ride and started training in earnest in mid May, I've put 1100 miles of saddle time in. That's almost more than I've done in any 6 month period of time since I started riding in mid 2007. Let me share a little of what I did this weekend.

Friday I took off early from work to do what was, by far, the hardest ride I've ever done on the bike. For some insane reason, I let members of my ride team talk me into doing a climb up one of the local mountains around here. It's a 10 mile (also with climbing) or so ride to get there, and then we got to do this:


Now, in all fairness we didn't climb all the way to the top, we only went to mile 8 or so. But that's all uphill folks, and no matter what that map says, my friend's GPS says there was no grade lower than 7% and it went to as much as 12% at times. I can tell you by the time I made it to the point where we stopped, I thought I was going to have a gdamn stroke. Here I am, post almost-stroke:


Then, of course, on the way back I got separated from my friends, got lost, and added about 5 more miles (38 total) on to the ride then I needed to. Yes, I'm an idiot.

Saturday I took the day off to work on my bike and get it tuned up for Sunday, when rode from the beach and back. All told, I put 123 miles on the bike for that day (215 total for the week) when all was said and done. I guess at this point, I'm about as ready as I'm ever going to be. I hope.

I'll try and post up at night after each days ride to update on the progress on the ride. If anyone, you know, cares.

So, That Was Not Easy

Hope that everyone had a great 4th (timely right?)! You're wondering what I did? OK, let me tell ya:

Friday the 3rd, myself and 3 friends decided to ride to the beach and back from our neighborhood. We figured it would be a cool way to spend one of our holiday days in addition to being the first test to see how we'd handle the distance that we'd face on one day of the charity ride. Cause you see, to the beach and back is about 100 miles round trip.

Actually, it went really well*. Going the 50 miles down was a breeze. We stopped, had a nice breakfast and then started making our way back. The first 30 miles back were also a breeze since it's all relatively flat. The last 25 miles were NOT a breeze. Before you start making the steady climb back into our town, there is one gargantuan, steep hill about a mile or so long that must be conquered. I swear, I thought I might have a gdamn stroke. But, I made it to the top without ever stopping or getting off the bike. Yay me!

From there, it was just the slowly building elevation all the way til we got back home. That and the motherf*@king traffic control. I swear we must have hit 95% of the lights on the way back. And I can tell you there's nothing quite as fun as having to stop at every light in 95 degree weather, sitting there baking waiting until you have to get yourself started again. It's not a lot of fun. Managed to make it the 105 miles at about 14.5 mph, so a pretty big accomplishment.

So the training continues and we're going to start ramping it up by doing 20 or so miles every morning and hopefully get a couple 30-40 mile rides in at night on top of that. At this point, about 5 weeks to go!

Oh, and if you're interested in donating to a good cause and helping a brother out, go here.

*If you don't count the fact that my junk was completely numb by the time I got back home. Gotta get that fixed before I end up a Viagra popper.