80%...

Wow. I really didn't realize how much time had gone by since I'd put an update on here. Last time I posted we'd just completed our first 50+ mile team training ride. Since then we've gotten considerably farther along in our training. This past Saturday, for instance, we completed an 84 mile ride in the Livermore Valley.

I'll let that sink in. 84 miles. On a bike. And yes, my ass hurts. That's right. It's 3 days later and my ass still hurts.

Seriously though, the worst bit about this past ride was the sheer quantity of grass pollen blowing around. And I do mean blowing. Sure, we rode 84 miles and did over 4000 feet of climbing and that was hard, but it wouldn't have been half as hard if most of those miles hadn't been logged into a 20 - 25 mile per hour headwind that was carrying the peak of the spring allergy season's grass pollen on it. My ass my be sore but at least that doesn't make me wake up in the middle of the night coughing.

Now, just to give an idea of how nuts I've become with all this, the next day I got on my bike and did another 30 or so miles for recovery. Wind still blowing. Grass pollen still as thick as John Madden's gut. Yessir, I'm certifiable.

Anyway, just to catch you up, here are the routes we've done since the end of March:

Buddy ride from GG Park to Fairfax & back - 57.44 miles, 2859 ft of vertical gain.
Team Ride, Tomales Bay Loop - 60.71 miles, 4523 ft of vertical gain.
Buddy ride, San Ramon to Walnut Creek loop - 32.43 miles, 1686 ft of vertical gain.
Team Ride, Half Moon Bay - 68.28 miles, 7766 ft of vertical gain.
Team Ride, Livermore Valley - 84.01 miles, 6101 ft of vertical gain.

If you've got Google Earth you can use the links on each of these pages to take a virtual tour of each route. If the schedule looks a bit muddled, it is. The week that we did the buddy ride from San Ramon to Walnut Creek we were supposed to climb Mt. Diablo, but it rained that day and the coach leading the ride chose a shorter alternate route that was less hazardous. I also missed a buddy ride in between the Half Moon Bay and Livermore Valley rides because I was sick. Oh, I went on a ride, like a fool, with the Valley Spokesmen locally, and when I got home had a fever of 102 degrees. Not smart. I told you, this cycling stuff has made me loony.

Here's the route I did when I was basically too sick to be out of bed. 48.48 miles with 3868 ft of vertical gain. Altogether, with mid-week rides thrown into the mix, I've ridden around 850 miles in the last 3 months.

No wonder my ass hurts.