Coming back to my LJ after the last month, I felt a little overwhelmed, so I cut some journals, feeds and communities to try and feel a little more in control of my reading. I'm not sure how well it will work, but I had to give it a try.

Everyone is aware that it's always defriending amnesty day around here, right? And you don't even have to tell me why...

Happy birthday to elynross! Friend, collaborator, and editrix, my life has been enriched by knowing you.

Apologies for not answering comments for the last couple of weeks. My goal for this next week is to get back on track with my fannish life, now that I am not training for the STP. I have so much to do.

Ride Length: 14 miles
Elevation: Not much to speak of
Where: Sammamish River Trail
Start Time: 10:00 am?
End Time: 11:15?
How long: 1.15
On bike time: 1.03, avg speed 12.9 mph
Total Calories: Maybe 500 calories

First real ride after the STP, and it felt great to get back out on the trail. While this wasn't my fastest time ever for doing the trip to Woodinville, it was a pretty good time, for me trying to take an easy pace. I can see I have gotten faster, in general, and I'm going to try and put in an hour or two of cycling in on the weekends, just to keep up the pace. I'm thinking I may try to do the RSVP next year, since shereld and her partner have set their sights on doing that ride, hills and all.

In which case....wow, I really am insane.

I woke up early on Sunday, around 4:30, whiney and cranky from lack of rest. I grabbed my bagel, banana and a carton on chilled vanilla soy milk from the fridge, and crawled back into bed to quietly eat while Lar slept. I'd forgotten to bring a tea bag, so I didn't get my morning cup of tea, which bummed me out. From my oh, so vast, experience of two STP rides, getting up Sunday is a hugely emotional experience for me, involving a lot of near-tears and vows to never do this again. Still, I ate, I dressed, and I shrugged away discovering that the sign with my bike number had ripped away on the trip from Centralia, plus I was missing one of the safety pins for the registration number on my jersey. So I'd flap in the wind a little. There were worse things that could have happened, and my tiredness made me very zen, even when I wanted to just go back to bed.

We got going about a half hour late, joining the route right next to our motel. I was really missing my tea, and had a bit of a time getting going; Sandy and B dropped me early, and I saw little of them for most of the day. Occasionally, I'd catch up when they stopped for a rest, but on the whole, I was conversation-free for most of the ride.

Which was fine, as owing to the lack of tea and the low energy levels, I don't think I would have been much of a conversationalist anyway. I think by this time I was pretty much reduced to grunts.

Outside Chehalis, the route weaves around through pretty farm land as it approaches the Napavine hill. With the sun coming up, and the cool morning air, it's quiet, still and lovely, with only the huge stream of cyclists disturbing the landscape. People post signs on this stretch, congratulating friends and riders making the trek; Every single one of those signs made me smile, and within a half-hour, I was awake enough that my grumpiness had faded somewhat, and I felt like I might survive.

The sun was already high enough that the windbreaker came off right after I caught up to Sandy and B again. I had one of the shot bloks with caffeine, along with a fig newton, and then it was hill climbing time. The Napavine hill isn't as long as "The Hill" in Puyallup, but it's long enough to be its own lesser hell. At the top, though, is the banana bread lady, and while I didn't pick any up in my desire to hit the portapotties a mile down the road from her, it's still great to see her and her family out, handing out their fresh baked bread slices to riders that stop by.

I love the Napavine portapotties. There's no big rest stop there, hence no huge line, and I could just huge them for that. If they weren't, you know, blue, plastic, hot and stinky portapotties.

Coming out of Napavine is a real nice set of rollers, hills that are just the right spacing and grade that you can get up most of the next one from the down hill energy of the first. We flew through the next ten miles, and I remember thinking that this was what it must be like for people that actually cycle fast. The Winlock rest stop was right there well before I expected it.

In my mental plan, I had hoped not to have to stop at Winlock, but such was not the case; much more time got eaten away in the potty line, though we did have some nice conversation with the guy next to us. We also looked around at all the various forms of sunburn showing on the other riders.

Note to other women cyclists: No matter how hot it is, it's really not worth it to cycle just in your spots bra unless you have access to McKay's patented SPF100 sunscreen, and a way to slather it on even when your on the bike.

When I got my chance in the biffy, a train went by, and the flashing light/dark/light/dark along with the shaking ground made me a little seasick, plus it was already getting warm. Not enough to stop me from downing some more food from my snack bag before hitting the road again, and heading on to Vader.

I remember the road out of Winlock being a lot harder last year; this year, the section went by quickly as well. More rollers, and some worse than rollers, where there's no energy from a prior hill to help you up the next, but all in all, it wasn't bad. I met up with Sandy at the rest stop where we waited for B, who had had a problem with her cycling computer fritzing out. Another line, another refill of the water bottle.

(note: the vader people had water in containers, not in a water truck. Apparently, the one I got water from had once had coffee in it, so when I took a sip a ways down the road, I got the coffee flavor mixed with left over electrolyte drink. Mmmmm. NOT. I didn't drink a lot of this section, I tell you. I probably should have swapped to my other bottle the moment I realized that was what was going on, but by this time, the brain cells were already a little fried.)

There's another steep hill to get out of Vader, and I was following behind Sandy when this other rider went down in front of her; I saw the woman fall sideways into a mailbox, and thought she might have struck her head. Sandy pulled over at the driveway after the mailbox, to check how the woman, and I pulled over as well, just in case. The woman was shook up but okay, and her bike was in working order, so she waved our help away, insisting she just hit her knee and her wrist, but hadn't hit her head. (Personally, I was thankful she had a helmet.) So we all walked our bikes up the hill to the 'flat' section, and took off after that; when I next passed the woman outside of castle rock, the chain had come off her bike during the climb and someone else was helping her put it back on. I think the derailer might have gotten bent in that fall, but I don't know for sure. I did see her one last time, placing a call to someone at the Castle Rock rest stop, so maybe the bike had been hurt worse than we thought.

The hills into Castle Rock aren't nearly as fun as true rollers, but it is a lovely ride. The sun was climbing and it was getting pretty warm, and it was just around ten by the time I met up with Sandy and B again in the shade in front of the high school. We were able to keep the stop short though, and got back on the road to Lexington, which is where we had our big lunch stop.

The volunteers were very apologetic. They had run out of a lot of things, and were down to somewhat dry peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread, plain bagels with nothing to put on them, a few pretzels, grapes and plumb. Since last year all I got was PB&J on squirelly bread, this was nearly a feast! I took some of everything--I got two of the sandwiches, and gave one to Sandy, so she wouldn't have to move from where she was sprawled out under a tree--and B grabbed the same, so we were able to picnic under the shade, until we were finally ready to move. The grapes weren't particularly sweet, but they were cold, which made them oh, so good.

I had remembered the ride to the bridge as being rather flat, but wow, was I wrong. Lots of hills, though none terribly steep, but it did seem like we were either going up or going down (a theme for the rest of the route.) It was hot, too, as we were past 11:00 am, and could tell that it was creeping into the 80s. So we sweated, and stopped, and climbed, and coasted, finally routing into Longview proper, and crossing the city to get to the bridge.

At one point, Sandy got so far ahead that she pulled into a shady spot under a bridge. When B and I caught up with her, she had a puppy cradled in her arms and was talking to the woman who owned it, who was holding a second one. Seriously, how many people get to have a puppy break on a long ride?

Standing around and waiting for our turn over the bridge was tough. We just missed the group ahead of us and got to watch them stream over the bridge while we waited at the stop light to get to our place in the line. So we ended up standing around for 15-20 minutes in the sun, getting hotter and hotter right around noon time, waiting for our chance to go; it really gave me way too much time to get anxious about the whole thing.

Fortunately, there were lots of other people to talk to. The two guys on cyclo-cross bikes who cross-dressed in the 1960s house dresses. The guy from Team Parkinson's who had been reminding me to drink electrolyte stuff whenever I ran into him at a rest stop or a stop light. The guy who was hand-cycling the distance, because he had no legs. (Really, he was the kind of guy that they make movies about. He was doing the STP as training from a trans-america tour. Seriously inspirationational.)

We got the signal to start moving, and despite our plan to go at the end, since, you know, bridges freak me out, I couldn't hang back and let myself get sweapt up in the crowd. B was great, and paced by me the whole distance across, so I didn't have to see the water, and I was able to focus on the butts ahead of me and just ground my way across. I'd forgotten how steep the bridge is, and it is a bit of a pull to get up and over; also, we couldn't speed down the way we did last year, since we were still with the crowd.

We pulled over at the little store after the bridge, after we were kicked off the gas station lot, where there was a tiny bit of shade; I called Lar from there, telling him that I had made it. A few people went in and bought ice cream, and man, did that sound good, but it was not to be. Instead, we headed back to highway 30, and the ten miles to Goble (which I perversely call Gobble, like a turkey.)

I must have used up my energy waiting in the sun or something, because, man, I could not get going, and my skin--which I had been applying sunscreen to at nearly every stop--just radiated heat. The road was slow going, and I was hot, and every hill we did just made me hotter. I felt like I was just crawling along, and it was tough to keep the pedals moving. There's a pretty good climb right before you hit Goble, and that was the point that I felt like I just could not cool down.

I stood in the shade, drinking ice water, and contemplated getting squirted with water, but every time I stepped out in the sun, it made me want to cry, it was just so hot. I guess it was 90 by then--the high got up to about 95 that day--and the road absorbs heat, radiating it back at the rider, so it might have been 100 in the sun out on the blacktop. I don't know.

Sandy and B were getting their stuff together to get back on the road, when I realized: I didn't have to do this. I had already done the STP last year, and if I gave up on the bragging rights and the finisher's badge, I could just quit. Call Lar, have him come get me, and just be done with the heat.

And I just decided that I really needed to do that. My legs felt good, my body was fine, but I had lost the mental component, the need to get it done. Getting out of the heat became my main goal, and I didn't want to end up with heat exhaustion, which I think I had at the Tour De Cure this year, or even something worse. I talked to Sandy and B, and they said 'hey, whatever, you decide, everyone does their own ride' and I decided that yeah, I could not deal with the heat. It's always been the bain of my existence, I was just done.

So I called Lar, and they went on; I got to hang out on the porch of the rest stop sitting in a chair 'till he arrived. Lots of people came through, some I worried about, but most seemed fine, if tired, and low energy. There was still 40 miles to go after the rest stop, but most riders were focused and 'I just want this done.' Lots of planning about dinner, lots of grumbling about 'who got me into this'--lots of hot dogs consumed. By the time I thought 'Doh! I could get a hot dog too,' the dogs were gone, so I had a snack out of my bag and waited.

After Lar picked me up in the lovely, air-conditioned truck, we headed back through St Helens and needed to stop for gas. I headed to the burgerville next door, meeting another group of riders who were just heading out. 'Can't go wrong in there,' one of them said, hitching a thumb at the door. 'it's all great.'

So I got a chunky monkey smoothie (banana, ice cream, chocolate, and a juice blend) and a hamburger, and the combo was simply amazing. (Not to mention the clean restroom that I didn't have to stand in line for. that was amazing too.) I looked for Sandy and B as we passed riders on the way back, but I didn't see them; I guess they hit the offical rest stop around that time for their break.

By the time I got to the hotel, I had cooled off. My legs cramped up a little in the car, but rubbed it out; after I showered, I rubbed my legs down with 'magic oil', and that was the last cramp I had for the night, which was fantastic, given that my track record for cramps while cycling in the heat is pretty high.

B called us about an hour out for the finish line, so we were able to wave and clap for them as she and Sandy crossed into Holiday Park in Portland at about 6:49. We got their stuff and ferried them to their hotel, then Lar and I got dinner and crashed for the night.

It really was a great experience.

Let me interruptmy STP narrative to plug a couple of products. The first is what we called 'Magic Oil', though the real name is Aches and Pains oil, which is almond oil infused with arnica, st. john's wort, and lavender oil. I used it liberally Saturday and Sunday night, rubbing it into calves, thighs, feet and hands. (I actually did it twice, once right after my shower and once right before bed.) My hands had been cramping up but the massage relaxed them and I ended up with no night cramps at all. Since I had bad cramping the last two times I did long rides in 90 degree heat, this was amazing to me, absolutely 'magic.'

The other one is Burt's Bees Aloe and Linden After Sun Soother. If you look at the ingredients, it seems like a mixture of every home remedy for sunburn that you have ever heard of. But I've used it with the last bad sunburns I had from cycling, and by the next morning, it has cleared up and was a regular tan. Plus I love the way it smells.

The jury is still out on the mineral sunscreen I used. I did get burned on my arms just like always, even though I reapplied at every rest stop. I was thinking of switching back to the chemical sunscreen I'd brought about the time I bailed on the ride, and I would have had to wash the mineral stuff off first, as we'd seen bad reactions from combining the two a couple of weeks ago. I think in part using the mineral stuff contributed to a few of the concerned comments I got on the second day, as the mineral part made me look peaked and blotchy. (well, either that or zombie-like, but maybe that's the same thing.) I still reacted to my own sweat, so I have lovely goosebumps calming down today, but that's pretty normal for me from most sunscreens. At least it isn't serious hives.

Ride Length: Close to 160 miles out of 204.
Elevation: 3000 ft?
Where: STP Route
Start Time: 6:15, 6:30
End Time: 5:30, 1:30 in the afternoon
How long: appx 19 hours
On bike time: Forgot to get this before the trip home, which added time and miles to the counter
Total Calories: 9000? more or less

As you can see, I didn't finish the full ride this year. I managed day one pretty well, even with the 90F/32C heat. The second day it got up to 95F/35C and after crossing the bridge into Oregon and going over one of the last really steep hills, I found some shade at the Gobel rest stop and decided that I just could not deal with the heat. shereld and B went on to finish the ride, while I opted out for a milkshake and a burger and a cool ride back to the motel, courtesy of my wonderful husband. One day of riding in the heat I could handle, but two days was just too much for me.

Don't feel bad for me, though! I was really pleased to finish nearly 160 miles of the route on such hot days. I've never done well in heat, and it really was the better choice for me to opt out. I didn't want to push myself and end up with heat exhaustion or worse; I'd already come pretty close to that when I did the Tour de Cure this year, and I didn't want a repeat.

Taking out the heat factor and looking back, I did enjoy myself. (I did whine a lot more, but I'm laying that at the heat factor too. If only it have been the average 75F/24C! That would have been just perfect.) On the first day, we took an alternate route to the first rest stop, and I was able to count 9 rabbits hanging out by the roadside along the way. We kept startling them as we threaded through parks, trails and little used roads during the wee morning hours; We didn't catch site of any other STP riders until we hit Tukwilla. We saw six other riders during that first section of the ride, which was a wonderful thing. When we turned off the Interurban trail in Kent at 228th to join up with the rest of the riders, we picked up another few thousand people, and we didn't get rid of them until near the end of the trip. I didn't clip in much at all because of how unpredictable the crowds are; I just didn't trust the people around me to behave responsibly.

The first rest area is pretty fun, even though it is a zoo. The theme this year was Vegas, and they had a Los Vegas Elvis helping to direct traffic. Plus the speakers are blaring good music, people are happy and excited, and everyone is milling around just waiting to go.

The big problem this year--and this was a continuing theme--was the huge line for the portapotties. It took us a half hour to get through the portapotty line, and that was pretty consistent for the entire trip at almost every official rest stop or mini-rest stop we were at. (The two exceptions are the Yelm rest stop and Castle Rock, both of which we managed to be in and out of in about 15 minutes. Well, okay, we spent longer at Yelm because they had flush toilets and let us inside the air conditioned school, which at that point was our definition of heaven...)

I did notice that in general, we had more groups than individual riders, compared to what I experienced last year. Lots of matching shirts, cycling club groups, etc. Last year, I could pretty much find a group of stragglers going my speed when I was tired and latch on for a bit; this year, not so much, and I ended up riding alone between large groups that had just passed me and groups that hadn't passed me yet. ;) As I got more tired, it was almost befuddling, and I wondered if maybe that was part of the reason the ride filled up so early, as groups signed up en-mass, rather than the onesie, twosie, threesie from last year.

Seriously, the things you think about on long stretches when you're trying to avoid dwelling on hot you are...Sandy at least kept me entertained at times with ideas for stories that she wanted me to write. I mostly grunted my replies, as I really didn't have the brain cells to plot a darn thing, but the visuals were nice.

Anyway, after Kent we headed to Puyallup, which seemed like a nicer stretch of road this year than last. Maybe there was less construction? I did miss not having the guy with the dog trailer pass me, as I loved keeping an eye out for his last year. This year, I kept an eye out for the guys in viking horns where one of the guys had a super-huge bike, or this other set of riders where the guys had picked up old 1960s house dresses at a thrift store and wore them over their bike shorts. I thought that was hysterical.

The unicyclist though, man, he was really hard core.

We bypassed the portapotties in Puyallup, and managed to find a grocery store where the lube, oil, and filter place next to it had opened up one of their rest rooms to passing cyclists. That was awesome, and very well timed, as we had less than a mile before the hill at that point.

The hill was the hill, 7%-8% grade, with a false top that lets you rest for a bit before the final push up to the top. It's not the only 7% grade hill on the route, but it is the longest one, and it deserves its press.

The Spanaway rest stop was better organized and had better food, not that we ate it. Mostly it was just pee, sunscreen, and grab some of what we brought to eat out of our bags. It may seem weird to ride one of these big events with a huge trunk filled with my own treats, but seriously, you never know what's going to be provided or if they are going to run out. This way, we were covered.

Oh, they also turned on the sprinkler system while we were waiting at the restrooms, and we got splashed. I did not mind in the least, and it was a theme through out the day and the next. We cyclist was a very popular look.

The stretch of road to Roy went faster than I remembered, and there was no Wilcox Dairy handing out chocolate milk this year. We bypassed it and then passed McKenna, and went straight onto the lovely indoor Yelm comfort stop.

The trail after Yelm was less happy making than I remembered from last year. The downhill was still wonderful, but for some reason, I remembered that there had been a lot more shade. It was getting really hot by then--upper 80s I guess--and we found several places just to pull over in the shade and have a quick electrolyte shot blok and something to drink.

At the end of the trail, Tenino rest area is pretty much a large ball field with woods on one side, which is where everyone parked to hang out in the shade. They also had ice cold water, which tasted fabulous, even through we only sipped at it in fear that too much too quickly might bring on stomach cramps. It didn't, and it was just perfect for that particular moment.

The road out of the park had recently been repaved with chip seal, which meant we got to ride over a bumpy road that smelled strongly of tar for the next six miles. At one point, Sandy had pulled off in some shade--She was riding faster than I was, and so I always met up with her in some shady spot on the roadway--and when I joined her and B, I left my bike at the very edge of the road rather than pull it off into the gravel. B said I should get it off the road, and I can remember thinking 'but it's not in the road, it's at the edge', yet apparently, I never said a work, I just stared at her like English no longer made sense. Sandy pulled my bike into the gravel, and B handed me the last of the cool water, and I had a couple more shot bloks; within a couple of minutes, I was fine, and able to communicate once again.

Just, you know, heat freaky. I really don't handle it well.

Fortunately, we were very close to Centralia by then, and rolled into the mid-point at about 5:30; I finally got my mid-point orange creamcicle, yay! Sandy and I flopped into the shade of a tree and lay back, wolfing down our prize, and then I called Lar to pick us up for the trip to the motel. We had a little confusion for a meetup point--at one point, Sandy, B and I are sitting in the shade on this little hill front of someone's house, when we hear "hey, hey! You want a fruit bar?" The lady who owned the place brought out a frozen fruit bar for each of us, which was sweet of her, though only Sandy accepted as I had just had the ice cream and wasn't yet ready for more--but we made it eventually. Lar's mom had sent some cranberry muffins fresh from the oven with him, so we snarfed those and chocolate soy milk on the way to the hotel.

By the time we showered, it was 7pm already, so we headed to the closest restaurant, had dinner, did whatever prep we needed for the next day, and crashed for the night.

Tomorrow, wahhhhhhhh!

I figure this is just the first of a series of panic posts, as the STP draws closer. I need to get together a list of all of the stuff I need for this weekend, from cycling gear and on-bike items to the two overnight bags. So that junk is going behind ( the cut tag: )

Ride Length: 48 miles (approximately)
Elevation: 2440
Where: Eastside Urban Loop, with Juanita hill
Start Time: 8:30-ish
End Time: 2:30 pm
How long: appx 6 hours
On bike time: 4.40 hrs, 10.1 mph avg speed.
Total Calories: 3000


We decided to do a lot of hills today on our rest day, most of them the small 'rolling hills' variety, and ending the hilly part of the route with Juanita Hill (3 miles of a 2.5-3% grade, more or less). I took West Lake Sammamish and climbed Newport Hill to get to Factoria, then met up with sherrold and her partner at Entai Beach Park in Bellevue. Then we meandered through the 'beaux arts' area, admiring the houses, and then along clyde hill to 520. It was absolutely gorgeous, and we had a lovely view of the lake for this part of the ride. By the time we crossed 520 and headed into Kirkland, though, clouds were threatening, so we had a bit of a breeze when we stopped at Marina Park--one of the few times I've ever seen it so empty. We felt up to the challenge of Juanita Hill, and headed over it to get to log boom park, rather than taking the easier way. At log boom, we separated, Sandy and B back to the Burke Gillman trail and their place, while I headed for the Sammamish River Trail and my regular route home.

All in all, I felt pretty good. I'd done a lot of climbing, and I was still able to keep up a good clip on the way back to Redmond, so I guess I am as ready as I will get. Saturday is approaching fast.

2002 - My first year with LJ, I posted about writing (Desert Prince and HP), and wanting to exercise, but not getting to it.

2003 -- I posted a (no longer working) link to an article entitled "dread cuthulu lies dreaming". Man, I wonder what that was about.

2004 -- I was pimping for Sandy's "breaking the rules" (or "it's more of a guideline really") vid show for VVC, trying to help her find more examples.

2005 -- I settle into a theme. My first bike ride ever -- 10 miles along the Sammamish River Trail to Mt. St. Michelle and back, followed by a post on updating my SGA rec list.

2006 -- Second bike ride of the year, 8.3 miles, along the SRT. This is also when I starting hunting for a cycling icon.

2007 -- 21 miles, bike ride 21 for the year, along the SRT, with 10 days to go to the STP.

This year, it's 9 days, and if the weather clears up, I may go for a ride.

Ride Length: 82 miles/132 km (approximately)
Elevation: No data
Where: Redmond to Fort Dent, via Trails
Start Time: 8:15-ish
End Time: 6:30 pm
How long: appx 10 hours
On bike time: 7.40 on-bike time. 10.7 mph avg speed.
Total Calories: 5000

This was my last big training ride--Next weekend I get to go back to a 50 mile route, then it's the STP--and I wanted to get close to 90 miles, since last year, my energy flagged between 30-60 miles, and again between 70-80. (Once I got through that one, I was pretty much 'death march home'.) I made it to about 82 mile yesterday, in 91F/33C heat, which I think is pretty darn good, though most of the ride was along very flat trails. (We did get into some rolling hills cutting through downtown on the way back to the burke-gillman trail) Despite the heat, it was a beautiful day for a ride. Most of the route takes us by rivers or along the waterfront, so sometimes we had a stiff headwind, but I felt like it was a lot cooler than it would have been out on the regular road.

The good news was no cramping the way I had cramped back in May during similar weather, so I guess taking is slow and making sure I had enough electrolytes helped. By the time I got to the Woodinville park, it was getting dark in some places on the trail as there's no lighting, so I decided to bail on the last 7 miles and called for a pick up. It's another 20 miles on top of this for the first day of the STP, but I will be starting 2 hours earlier, so I think I'll be fine--as long as it's not so hot.

I owe some email replies to folks, and I hope to get to it this weekend. Today is the last big ride before the STP, so I will be out all day for that, so maybe tomorrow for email. Tomorrow will be a recovery day, so I will do only a couple of hours riding, and I expect that we will go see a matinee. Of what, I don't know, but something.

See ya on the flip side.

I have no consistent access to mail or LJ until it is fixed. Hopefully things will be back at the end of the day.

*whew* I think I am momentarily caught up. I wasn't on LJ at all this weekend, and just managed to get caught up. Still no writing I'm afraid, and that's two weeks now without opening my file. I am getting ready to admit that I cannot train for endurance cycling and participate in endurance writing at the same time.

Ride Length: 75 miles (approximately)
Elevation: No data
Where: Around Lake Sammamish to Marymoor, then the Samm River Trail/BGT to Seattle
Start Time: 9:15-ish
End Time: 4:50 pm
How long: 7.5 hours
On bike time: 6.20 on-bike time. 11.7 mph avg speed.
Total Calories: 3750

Looking back, I did this route on the same weekend last year, with pretty much the exact same results. The only real difference was that last year, I did it on Saturday so it was day one of my riding weekend, and this year I did it on Sunday, my day two. So I feel pretty good about the results, given that I did all those hills the day before. So for the weekend, I put around 141 miles, and I'm calling it good.

Man, no wonder I'm not getting any writing done. I may have to finish my big bang story late and on my own.

Ride Length: 66 miles (approximately)
Elevation: 2740
Where: Big Lake Washington Loop (with Mercer Island pit stop)
Start Time: 9:30-ish
End Time: 6:00 pm
How long: 8.5 hours
On bike time: 6.11; 10.7 mph avg speed.
Total Calories: 4000

Cloudy and overcast, but horribly humid. It felt great while we were, as we always had a breeze. Each time we stopped, it was a dive for shade, as I realized just how hot, sweaty, and sticky I was. Beautiful ride though, with a lot of smaller hills and a couple of big ones, including the 520 hill from Redmond (The hill is 3 miles in total, but the 12% grade is right at the beginning, then it smooths out to about a 5%), plus 112th in Bellevue, not to mention the final climbs up Seward Park and Capital Hill. No wonder it was such a long day.

Ride Length: 50 miles (approximately)
Elevation: 330
Where: Redmond to Gasworks and back via BGT/SRT
Start Time: 9:00-ish
End Time: 2:00 pm
How long: 5 hours
On bike time: 4.06; 11.9 mph avg speed.
Total Calories: 2500

I shocked myself by doing the trail in just over 5 hours, about 2 minutes over. That is the fastest I think I have ever done the trail, and that includes stops at Woodinville, Log Boom, Gasworks, Log Boom again and Woodinville again. Other than those pit stops, I didn't stop at all--not even to blow my nose.

It was a gorgeous, gorgeous day to be on the trail, and around 10K other people thought so too. I dodged kids and people riding three abreast, like they were the only people on the trail, not to mention the normal walkers, parents with strollers, and many, many cute dogs. The second time I was at Log Boom, there were 4 puppies in the water, splashing and playing with each other and trying to chase the ducks. At the end of my ride, I popped into starbucks for one of their high-calorie mint chocolate chip Frappuccino, which I had wanted to try. So I kicked back in the shade with my drink, and waited for Lar to come get me. It was a great way to finish a fun summer ride.

Ride Length: 45 miles (more or less)
Elevation: 2140 FT
Where: Flying Wheels 45 mile route
Start Time: 9:30 am
End Time: 2:30 pm
How long: 5 hours
On bike time: 3.53, avg speed 10.8 mph
Calorie guesstimate: 2500

Flying Wheels is the annual prep-event for the STP, and it is a beautiful ride. I think the weather was similar to what it was last year, with cool and cloudiness that burned off. The ride kicked our butts again, but we shaved about 45 minutes off last year's clock time and about 20 minutes of that was on-bike time. That is great improvement.

The route has 3 hills:

Inglewood Hill, which is the shortest and steepest of the hills, being a half mile of 10% grade. I nearly aborted the whole ride on this hill, as my heart was pounding going up it; I ended up walking part of the ascent, and I stopped about 3 times. It really kicked my butt.

Ames Lake Hill, is the middle hill, a lovely 5% grade for about a mile. This is my favorite of the three hills, mostly because I don't feel like I'm going to die on it. I didn't even stop once on this hill this year, and am quite proud of that. I guess I am getting more fit, even though the scale never shows it.

Issaquah-Fall City Road the longest hill, with a false top. The brief downhill is worth it, even though there's an other ascent afterwards to get to the top. I stopped a few times, but never walked, which was an improvement over last year as well.

Once I made it up over the Inglewood hill, I really enjoyed myself, and everything seemed to go smoothly. I did like the new location for the rest stop, at the old Carnation farm. I wanted to take a picture of their cow statue, but it turned out to be a long walk from the main rest area, and I wasn't up for it. So I took a picture of some people serving up bananas and fruit under the 'Nestle' tent, and called it a day.

Wow, what a day this is for birthdays! Happy natal day to: suzecarol, movies_michelle, and destina. Smart and beautiful women all. I hope you had a great day, with cake.