Thank you sir....may I have another??

After yet another morning on the job search I headed out the door with a big day of climbing ahead of me. I had mapped out the route last night and the plan was to head North of town, up Poudre Canyon, then at about 30 miles hop onto Stover Prairie road, continue climbing and then descend down the Rist Canyon Rd and back to town.

The Plan...

Heading up Poudre Canyon - gotta love this road

It looks colder than it actually was. The temp in town was about 55 and up here in the sun I was just wearing a jearsey and was dripping in sweat - As I'm typing this I have the first tan line of the year on my arm....SWEET!!

Once on Stover Prairie Road the gradient steepend quite a bit and I was turning over about 45 rpm and looking around every corner for the top....

I thought this was the top so I snapped a pic (I was way off) At this point my eye sockets were full of lactic acid and I'm fairly sure my eyes were about to roll back into my head!

After about an hour or so on the Stover Prairie road I turned onto the Rist Canyon road. I thought it was all downhill from here....but I was wrong again. The icing on the cake was that the next 2 or so miles were the steepest of the day...as you can see:
12% grade...you kidding me?? I was cranking my 30X23 like my life depended on it and managed to make it to the top before passing out. From here I just had to go down Rist Canyon and then ride about 9 miles back home. So, with 3 or so hours of climbing behind me, I put on some arm warmers, pointed downhill and let gravity take over! I made it back home about an hour later and am happy with the effort. Especially since this is my first week back to "real" training since mid October.

I had a package on my doorstep when I got back .....mmmm cookies and a bit of coffee from Hawaii (my rents were just there on vacation) Bring on the black goodness!!

Now...my legs are up, pasta is on my plate, and Scrubs is on TV....nice!!