One good push

Date: Aug. 10
Mileage: 85.5
August mileage: 272.9
Temperature upon departure: 67
Inches of rain today: 0"

Holy cow. It seems like I may actually attempt this 360-mile ride next weekend. I had come so close to talking myself out of it, too. But the bad knee started cooperating just long enough to respark those temptations. And once that fire starts building, it's only a matter of time before it consumes everything, even common sense. I have to put it out, somehow. Might as well do the ride.

This weekend was my final test to see how my body might cope in the long slow burn. My repetitive motion pangs seem to come on as a result of long periods of buildup rather than just one big ride, so to be able to move pain-free through a 50-mile ride, a six-hour hike, and an 85-mile ride in a three-day period bodes well. I felt great today. It seems like I'm probably as ready for a ride like this as I was ever going to get. Time to cool it off a little, stock up on Power Bars, and spend some time rebuilding Roadie into the lean, mean touring machine he was meant to be (well ... maybe not the lean and mean part.)

The clouds cleared out while I was riding this morning, opening up the sky to what may turn out to be the warmest, sunniest weekend of the summer. Everyone has huge plans and I actually feel a little bit lucky to have my upcoming workweek there to hold me back - otherwise, I'd probably be out scaling entire ridgelines or mountain biking all the trails out the road or otherwise completely burning myself out before Wednesday.

We opened up the official weekend with a big bonfire on the beach. We roasted rubbery "Tofu Pups" over the flames and intentionally dropped a lot of them in the coals. Then we wolfed down our day's allotment of calories and then some in the form of freshly made rhubarb pie. About two dozen people rolled in for this particular beach barbecue, officially making it the largest of the summer. The food was terrible but I think everyone suspected there would be a great sunset tonight. So far, the Friday night horizon has not disappointed us.