Day 184: Good Gravy, 3000+ Feet!

Update: 205.2 lbs, 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. 7 lbs to 60 lb goal.

"The hills are alive...." with the sound of one big sweaty mexican trying to climb some hills. Or at least will be in about 59 days. That is roughly the time left until the LAF Challenge, which I just found out is gonna be tougher than I thought.

I was trying to find a route map for the Livestrong Challenge this morning and stumbled across a blog entitled 'Return to 100: Livestrong Challenge,' which had a posting about the elevation for the Portland ride. At least, I think it's about the Portland ride, but this guy clearly lives in California, and rode a challenge down there last year...but the elevation map says Portland on it. Anyway, I also went to the official site and saw that over a 15 mile stretch we'll be climbing 3000+ feet during the ride. Sweet Fancy Moses. I think the most I've ever climbed total before was about 1000 feet, and that was over twice the distance.

As I continued on reading Keijiro's blog, I found the post recalling his experience of last years ride. Gotta say, it gave me the sweats just a bit -- dehydration, cramping, medical teams telling him he may want to get on the bus and ride back -- everything I've worried about in the back of my head, not knowing what to fully expect from a 70 mile ride. Keep in mind, the longest I've gone before is 30 miles, and in the past 3 weeks I've only been on my bike about as many times due to Summer Golf Fest '07. I realize now I'm going to have to seriously man up and get back to training if I intend to come back alive, and with a sticker that says 'yes, hard to believe it, but Lopez actually finished all 70 miles.'

In my morning of terror as I read this version of the challenge, I sent a link over to the other half of the Flying Torellis, and Nick proceeded to tell me that it couldn't possibly be as bad as the time he had an impromptu army hike of 25 miles, unpreparedly in cotton socks that ended up being soaked in blood when he was done, with blisters "the size of potato chips." I didn't ask if he meant little Frito sized ones, or ginormous Wavy Lays sized ones...but in either case, it still sounded pretty brutal. His point was that somehow, someway, we'll dig down and gut it out, and live to tell the battle stories to anyone who will sit still long enough to listen. And I know we will, I just don't want my finish to look like something that only the producers of Everybody Loves Raymond would come up with, rather, I want it to look like some feature spotlight at the end of a SportsNight episode.

So, time for some serious training. Two months to go, I can do this! At least I think I can, and either way, it's gotta produce some good laughs for the future.

Hasta!