Failure to train

Daniel's already posted a thorough and excellent account of most of our weekend, but I wanted to insert a few comments about the ride.

Even though I was still so sore i could hardly walk on Friday (thanks Max :-p), I had loosened up somewhat on Saturday morning. It turned out not to be much of an issue.

I definitely felt stronger this year, and a lot more comfortable with myself and my bike. Strength-wise I believe that I was entirely up to the challenge - unfortunately I just had not put in enough hours actually on my bike and I was pretty saddle sore by the time the 37 mile turn off came up. Since one of our friends had decided to turn off, and we basically had the whole weekend ahead of us, I decided to take the shortcut out too. I figured, while I could push myself and struggle through the last 20+ miles just to prove a point, it'd probably cripple me for the rest of the weekend; 37 miles is still a perfectly respectable distance, I had a really pleasant ride, and I was able to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the weekend, without being brutally sore.

We averaged about 13 miles an hour. I sort of think that if I had pushed harder to go faster, and had to spend less time in the saddle on my bike, i possibly could have made the full distance without crippling myself, but it was a lot more fun to keep pace with our friends and admire the gorgeous scenery. I'd love to go back up there and ride that route again sometime in the not too distant future. It was a fantastic weekend away, very friendly biking territory with low traffic back roads and wide shoulders on the busier roads and I could very much see doing it again - even without the organized ride.