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»Link.  I think the lesson here is to never assume your chat conversations are going to remain private. Relatedly, I just did a search locally and I have 175 chat logs from the last year with the word "fuck" in them and 400 with the word "damn". Perhaps I need to chill on the swearing a bit myself. Then again, I find the idea of someone being offended by a word incredibly amusing. That's a whole 'nother entry though.

A thought occurred to me this morning: While there are a few things I have done in my life that I am not proud of, they are greatly exceeded by the number of things I have done in my life that am incredibly proud of. Seems like one important way to weigh your life.

»Link.  I was thinking of driving somewhere today because it looks like it is going to be a day of regular intervals of rain. And then I saw this advertisement and thought to myself that it really is not so hard to put on rain gear and bicycle there instead.

"The goal of training for alpine climbing can be summed up in one phrase: to make yourself as indestructible as possible. The harder you are to kill, the longer you will last in the mountains."

Ah, what was I worried about? While bicycling 104 miles was not a walk in the park, I am sitting here the next day not even sore and thinking about taking a run in another couple hours once the sun is a bit lower and less intense.

I finished right around when I expected at 4pm, after starting at 7:40am in Beaverton. Since I did not carry any water or food on the bike or my back, I stopped at every rest stop and took a nice leisurely lunch. The latter more because of the long line for food than anything. The constant headwind the entire way was definitely wearisome, but I drafted with a few groups and that greatly helped. When you have been going 20-25 miles an hour into the wind just by yourself for hours that reduction of energy usage of 30-40% is such a joy. What? You mean I can actually pedal slower and go the same speed? Loverly. Right at the end, I drafted with a group of four guys and lead them to the finish. Solid way to end a ride.

If you take a look at the Portland course map, you can see the two decent sized hills on the second segment. For the climbs, the elevation gain was not too shabby. My bottom never left its seat, just went to my lowest gear and that was fine. The descent was amazing and great fun, despite being one of the most crash prone parts of the ride. At the second rest stop, there were more than a few riders who wanted to go back and do them again. The hills also had the added benefit of there being no wearisome headwind.

When I was finished, Liz and Carole (and Monk) met me at the finish, and we had an extremely tasty dinner at the Pacific House Restaurant (bit of a wait, but the food was well worth it and the owner came by and entertained us multiple times).

So...great ride! Totally worth doing.

»Link.  As if you needed another reason to move to Portland. The window is less than a mile from my house and is quite the treat on the weekend. I am particularly fond of the Granola and Fruit Waffle.

»Link.  

Way back in the month of March (ages ago now), I was puttering around a local bike shop and noticed that the American Lung Association’s Reach the Beach bicycle ride was coming up in May.  Ah, what a perfect opportunity.  I have always wanted to bike out to the beach and supporting a good cause seemed like the perfect excuse.

So, I signed up, donated a bit of my own money, and posted a link on Facebook to encourage my Friends to donate as well.

And then?  Well, I almost completely forgot about it for the next six weeks.  Seems the ride is this weekend and I only peripherally remembered anything about it until the official jersey arrived in the mail yesterday.  Biking 104 miles is not that much trouble, right?  Let’s do some math.  Assuming I take about eight hours to finish the route:

• 104 miles / 8 hours
• 13 miles / 1 hour
• 104 miles / 480 minutes
• 4.6 minutes / 1 mile

13 miles an hour?  That’s not so bad.  I go faster than that biking around the city with traffic and intersection stops—this race only has rest areas and a lunch break.  And I have done climbs longer than eight hours with only a handful of short five minute breaks.  Perfectly doable.  No reason to downgrade to a shorter ride.  Nope.

Notice how I am talking myself into this? I really did mean to do a bit more training than just biking around Portland.  But the constant barrage of rain the past month has not inspired me to take any long bike rides.  When it rains, I much prefer to go running or hiking than biking.

It’ll be fine!  Grand even!  Fantastic!  Doom!

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Incidentally, if you can, please make a donation and support the ride (and the crazy riders who do it).

»Link.  Movie loosely based on the short story "Adjustment Team" by Philip K. Dick. Simply the idea of there existing Agents of Fate makes me grin. Also, who does not love a little Terrence Stamp?

»Link.  "To manage your privacy on Facebook, you will need to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 options." Oy.