Hey!

Glad you had fun. We covered a lot of my fun riding ground yesterday - now you can see why I only leave home to ride in the Sierras! Just wait til we tackle the southern half of the course - roller heaven!!!

I became vegan again (I am SO on and off vegan - but this may last a couple of days) after riding through all those cows - moms and babies. I have never seen so many cows on Chileno Valley Road. It was like being in the middle of Cow Manhattan. I will say that riding through the heard of small friendly cows, who parted to reveal huge, ugly pink-eyed bull (with no fence between us and some of them on the road) on Coleman was a first for me!!!

I will say this was a good and challenging ride for me on many levels - I am really working on this breathing/asthma thing - it is just crazy how it affects me. I tried to go my normal pace up the first climb and the loudness of my breathing was so startling, I pulled it back the rest of the day on the climbs. And I was having crazy pain in my chest and back - not muscle "back pain" but stabbing pain when I would take a deep breath (this had woken me up the night before - I didn't whine about it to anyone except Kelly because I at least wanted her to know what was going on if I keeled over!)

If I really am thinking of doing the 508, I have to get this under control - oh and lose the last 15 pounds!! Oh well!

And thanks for the supportive comments about the shorts, all.... If only you guys could convince Mike I need even more pairs of shorts!!