Who wears bike shorts? I wear bike shorts!

Ok so I am crazy out of my mind with work, but I want to write this down before I forget about the glory and the pain. The Marin Century was AWESOME. It was also HARD.

My dad got in last Thursday, and we ate our way through San Francisco, despite the fact that he is a little ani. We went to Magnolia on Thursday and Tsunami and Fly Bar on Friday, where he reluctantly did a sake bomb.

Saturday we woke up early early early and headed up to San Rafael for the start of the ride. I was anxious as hell (seriously, why didn't I train?), but felt ok once I shoved my body into spandex and got on the bike. We started the ride at 8:30, and it got difficult pretty much right away. The first climb was long and steep. My "strategy" was to go hard for as long as I could, then rest for a sec, drink some Gatorade, and enjoy the buildup of lactic acid in my muscles. My dad and Leslie were the Little Engines That Could, chug a lugging up the hill (Leslie in a more speedy way than Pa Brennan). Mike just plowed up the mofo like his massive muscles were born to do.

The first 18 miles went up and over a big hill, down the other side through a fantastic redwood grove, and then through rolling hills full of cows who looked godammed lazy. At the first rest stop we scarfed PB&Js and brie, and geared up for leg 2. Leg 2 was a bitch at first - it started out with a huge hill that had me riding my brakes all the way down the other side - but settled into small up and downs that plopped us into a lovely shady park in Petaluma. There we were fed peaches and figs and more brie by a flaming man in a grass skirt who could not say enough about the complementary flavors of the cheese and the fruit and the lovely lovely day - it was Queer Eye for the cycling crowd.

Leg 3 sucked in every way possible, and if I had had any energy I would have wanted it to die so that I might stomp on its body. It was mostly out in the open, the sun made my head pound in a pre-explosive manner, my dad got a flat, I got stung by a bee, there was a headwind, and Red Hill was looooooooooong. This made the stop at mile 49 feel ohsosweet (see photo), and someone told my dad that watching him pedal away had gotten them through the leg.Then the last 11 miles turned out to be much better than I had expected, and (if you don't count Mike hitting the pavement with his head at 30 miles an hour) everything went swimmingly.

Aside from some gross sunburn on my legs (why oh why didn't I apply spf?) and Mike's cracked helmet and black eye, we all felt much better than expected on Sunday. Leslie marked the ride as one of the top 5 events in her life, and I feel like it was a pretty rad thing to do.