Friday, March 19, 2010

Dublin Weekend

The weather is coming around nicely, so getting time on the bike doesn't seem as hard as it did last month. Today's training included 39 minutes of sub-lactate threshold intervals during a 2 hour ride. It's still hard, but at least I'm not wheezing while trying to get enough air in the freezing temperatures.

Tomorrow Gator and I will ride down to Dublin (about 150 miles). The goal will be to take it easy so we'll be fresh enough to ride hard on Sunday's Dublin century. I don't ride many organized centuries anymore, so it will be fun to see a lot of the locals. No doubt that they'll want to show off their spring form, and they'll take pride in wearing me out.

I've finally completed all of the flight reservations for my crew on RAAM, and I've also reserved the third and final vehicle that we'll use during the race. The last step will be to tweak my Oceanside hotel reservations because the crew will be arriving on Saturday this year (instead of Sunday and Monday).

In an interesting development, we've come up with an exciting plan to help raise money for the Golden Harvest Food Bank. It's still an idea in progress, but I'm working with Stephen Auerbach to have a public screening of his award winning film "Bicycle Dreams." I'm very excited about the possibility of linking RAAM and bicycling to something that might have a positive impact on our local community. Gator Cochran is working very hard to make this a reality, and at this point we appear to have the support of our Columbia County Commissioners. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I will hope that most of my friends can keep their calendar clear for April 20th.