Three Months and Three Days…..

It dawned on me last week, that I now have just over three months to get ready for the upcoming California Coast Classic Bike Tour. The problem is that I tend to be somewhat of a procrastinator. If you give me something with too much lead time, I'll assume I have lots of time to get ready for it and I'll put it off...up until the point that it becomes a crisis and all of a sudden I'm stressing because I now have this deadline looming over me and have to really crunch to get ready....

In this case, I'm really trying to avoid doing that but it's difficult for a couple of reasons....1 - I really have no idea how hard it's going to be to ride 525 miles over 8 days. It could be I'm already in good enough shape. (although I doubt it) and 2 - I've never tried to raise $5000 for a cause before.

When I was thinking about doing this ride, I thought about all the people in my family that have been affected by arthritis and how cool it would be to raise a large amouint of money for this....$5,000 seemed like a pretty ambitious number so I set that as my goal....is it realistic, am I out of my mind? Who knows.....

The Tour starts in San Francisco on Saturday the 3^rd of October and ends up in Los Angeles 8 days and 525 miles later. 525 miles divided by 8 days is only 65 miles per day... I’m actually not at all worried about riding the 65 miles on any given day….it’s the 8 days in a row that concerns me. I’ve never ridden back to back long days before and figure I better start getting my butt in shape….and I literally mean my butt since saddle sores are a major concern on multi-day rides from what I hear….

So, this past Saturday I officially begain "training" for the Coast Classic. A couple of friends and I met in Castro Valley to do the Moraga Loop...of course it also turned out to be the hottest ride of the year so far with temps well into the 90's....All in all though, a great day with 45 miles and about 2800ft of climbing…just barely more than our shortest day on the Tour and nowhere near where I need to be, but it’s a start…..