Reach the Beach 2010
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).