Hi Amber! You Can Be My Friend Too!

This afternoon my niece, Amber, called to see if I would be having any friends join me during the OKFree. Well, since her papa, my brother, is planning to ride with me, and my papa, er, my dad, is planning to ride with me, I figured they could be my friends. Hopefully though, Amber will be my friend too before, during, and/or after the ride! Please, please, please Amber??!!

The jury is still out on whether Lori will ride with us. She hasn't asked her coach yet. Go figure!?

!!NEWS FLASH!! After talking with Amber, I talked with my brother Hal for a few minutes. He has ridden 65+ miles in the last 4 days. That's about what I have done too. Sounds like we are on track, as long as we keep at it, to have a fine time riding through scenic OK. I don't know if my Dad has started training yet. He is a natural athlete, so he probably won't need as many miles in the bank as me. I think he has a carbon bike too. That makes all the difference... Of course, I do have a triple if needed.



Lori and I went on a long hike for her training today. She is injured, so she can't run. Duane has booked her for hikes where she needs to run, so that is what we did. This picture is of us after our hike. I'm really tired here, and I will explain that in a sec.

We hiked for about 2.5 hours on Mt. Tam. We went up Hogback to Railroad, then the Fern Creek trail to the top. From there we went back down Fern Creek to Tavern Pump, back across to Railroad, down Miller back to Railroad, and then back down Hogback to finish up. Here is a picture from Fern Creek.



It was a beautiful day, even warming up to about 50 degrees.

So, why was I tired? Well, yesterday I received my new bike seat. It's a Brooks "Swift" leather seat. I have always wanted one, but they are heavy and expensive. I'm finally old enough to realize that a few grams isn't going to make much difference, so I pulled the trigger. So today, I had to give the new seat a test ride. I rode the 28 mile loop through Muir Beach (see the photo of the hawk cruising the Muir Beach ridge line below), Stinson Beach and then back up over Mt. Tamalpais to home.



Brooks seats are notorious for being very hard until they are broken in. I don't know, I didn't find that to be the case. Aside from being slick, the seat felt fine to me. Of course, I was wearing my long De Marche tights, with the diaper pad (my name) in them. I couldn't feel a steel rod in those things. I'm more a fan of the mid-to-low-range Castelli shorts with much thinner pads. They just feel right to me. I'll give a report on those when I have one.

Anyway, I have plenty of time to break the seat in before OKFree, and right now I am looking forward to the miles.

And tomorrow, it's back to work! Can't wait. Hmm, Winnipeg on Wednesday. Isn't it January? Do you think it is 50 degrees there?