My inner child!

Or in my case my inner adult!  My inner child is always visible and shared with others around me, it is the adult aspect of me that does not come out very often!  Luckily for me, Michelle puts up with it!  Once again my inner child took over decision making and I am out in Bend riding bikes while she is at home getting ready for her brother's wedding and a slew of other grown up things.  Not sure if it counts that I am here for the Marathon National Championships??  In my childish mind, all signs point to it being OK?  I am so glad that she supports me in this "so called" dream of wanting to ride bikes fast! 

So now the next timing issue with this trip.  This Friday will be our 11 year anniversary as well? Luckily again she knows I will make it up to her and fully supports my inner, or have we decided now that it is my outer childs urge to travel around and ride bicycles?   Either way I am here to do the best I can and I feel as if the legs are coming around.  They should! I having no responsibility besides riding and recovery! 

So a little about the trip!  It started out in Portland with Bossman and I doing some urban assault on the city! 

It is not too bad of a gig cause there is gelato and espresso on every corner in Portland!  While out I also made a new friend!

With all this work, the hunger settled in and it was time for some snacking!

Mmmm, I'll take one of everything!! 

So after terrorizing Portland, I headed my way to bend for some sweet singletrack riding!  The first couple days I tore around on the Nationals Course.  It seems OK, not what I would say is the best course, but I have seen worse, Idaho anyone!!   Here is a nice look of the course profile!  Cant go wrong with 25 miles up and 25 miles down!

I then watched some of the Cascades 24 hr race and watched as people became delusional!! Man, I will never do another one of those races unless it is just to have fun and if I oversleep my turn, oh well! 

Today was the first set back to the trip.  I woke with a thick smoke haze from all the fires happening around here!  It is so dry that I am afraid to nick a pedal on a rock thinking that it might spark and burn the whole place down!!  Luckily though the winds picked up and the smoke was gone by mid morning.  Today I did an out and back loop.  It was a nice ride with 20 miles of climbing and 20 miles of descending!  You starting to get the idea!  You can take shuttles if you want to start at the top, but I actually like the climb!!  Lots more time to look around!  At least when you are not bleeding out your eyes at race pace!  Today was pretty chill up the Mrazek trail with some nice views of Mt Bachelor once you get to the top! 

Now I am back at the condo in recovery mode!  It is easy to relax when this is the view you get every night from your patio!