The team headed down to Salem yesterday for a ride with our Salem team members. The ride was planned to be over 100 miles with lots of climbing – perfect to test my legs for the 105 mile stage the last day of Elkhorn stage race that is quickly approaching.

This was the longest ride I’ve done this year, and is probably in my top 5 distance-wise ever.  The stats:

108 miles, 7200 feet of elevation gain, over 5000 calories burned, average speed 18MPH, 6 hours of ride time, 5 Clif bars, 1 PB & J sandwich, 5 water bottles, 1 snickers bar.

It was a great ride – battling some winds and a massive 16 mile stretch consisting primarily of climbing.  I felt good on the hills as is becoming the usual this year, and I pushed it up several of the bigger climbs even though we were only 40 miles into the ride and had a long way to go.  About mile 80 I was suffering pretty badly to hang in with the groups on the flats, but as of mile 90 I was recovering much better and I actually had some jump left in my legs on the smaller climbs near the end of the ride.  I felt much better at the end of the ride than I did between miles 70-85.

The ride gave me confidence that at the very least I’ll be able to hang in there at Elkhorn, which will be my first big Cat 3 race coming up in two weeks.

Also to note:

Much of Oregon had a wicked thunder/hail/wind storm tear through Thursday afternoon.  I only caught the north end of the storm, but still got to see some strong winds and 15 minutes of downpour.  I like extreme weather.

I watched Hancock.  That movie could not underwhelm more if it tried.  The plotline skips around and abandons its original thesis, fails to provide meaningful background to charachters, and leaves you thinking it was trying to teach a lesson, but you’re not sure what the lesson is.  And Will Smith is my favorite actor, but he just didn’t have it this time.

I’ll be racing Mt. Tabor this Wednesday.  Up and down an extinct volcano a bunch of times in a group going as hard as you can until you win, or puke, or both.  Sounds like it suits me much better than racing at PIR.

I’m volunteering at the Circe du Cycling criterium on Mississippi next Saturday.  It’s only about a mile from my place, which is handy.  Its a day filled with events intended to draw a crowd, which it does.  The race consists of only two different category races – a Cat 1/2 race and a Cat 3 race.  I could race, but its a course notorious for spectacular crashing.  This makes for great spectating, but not the best racing unless you really like criteriums or road rash.