We have the distance - now we just need to increase the azimuth

Today, I decided I was going to ride a true Elephant Rock distance.  So I left the house and got on the now-familiar Santa Fe trail, and headed north.  But this time, I rode past Monument; past Palmer Lake; and kept on going until I got to Spruce Mountain.  A distance of 12.7 miles each way, or 25.4 miles round trip - including about 2 miles of single-track trail in the Spruce Mountain area.

The ride took me 2 hours and 33 minutes, or about 10 miles per hour average.  That's respectable (at least it is for me anyway).I still need to do some more hill work.  I'm not very happy with my performance on those yet.  Don't get me wrong, I don't have to walk them or anything. I would just like to be stronger on them.

Back to Work!

I've basically been a slacker over the last couple of weeks.  A week ago Thursday,  I went down to San Antonio to meet up with some old friends for Cinco de Mayo.  This was basically four straight days of hard-core partying, which, at my age, required about that same amount of time to recover.

So yesterday, I laced up my hiking boots for a quick 4-mile jaunt, and this morning, I got on my bike for a 15-mile ride.  The hike was nothing, but the bike ride was much tougher than it should have been.  I'm almost embarrassed how poorly I did.  I was practically gasping for air the whole time...not good!  I'm definitely gonna have to hit it harder over the next three weeks if I have any hope of being ready for Elephant Rock.