... and your little doggy too!

Weather-wise we had an interesting Saturday (5/31). The predictions were for sever thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain around noon. While watching the news the night before they showed the radar models for the tri-state (NY-NJ-PA) area and the area I was riding in was going to have the most severe weather. The kind that could spawn tornadoes. So I decided to err on the side of safety and cut the ride back to a Metric (Cranbury - Griggstown - Allentown). This was actually Sandy's and Mark's idea and this turn out to be a good idea. We managed to get back just before noon and while Mark and I did our cool down ride we got rained on. While driving home it came down heavy. When I finally got home I took at look at the weather service and found this:

 Forecast for Trenton, NJ 1114 am EDT Sat may 31 2008 ...Tornado Watch 402 in effect until 5 PM EDT this afternoon... .This afternoon...Mostly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce heavy rainfall...large hail...frequent lightning and damaging winds this afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80 percent. 

I'd say that pretty much sums up the day. While the winds were strong they really didn't give us too much trouble.

Now onto our training. Today was a good day. I've lowered my seat about a millimeter or two and my left leg feels okay. I did push the pace today which Sandy wasn't too happy with. Sorry Sandy, I promise that on the Longest Day we won't keep that pace all day long. We ended up with a low 18.2 mph avg. pace. That's pretty good but not a pace we can keep for the entire Longest Day (we're expecting 17 - 17.5 mph avg). Over all I'm pleased with my progress and tomorrow will give me a clear indication about the condition of my legs. Tomorrow Mark and I will be doing a Century out of the Manasquan reservoir. It's a derivative of my BBC ride (which I'll layout later). Starting that ride out of Cranbury would mean we finish with a 35 mile head wind (we return West and the wind is out of the West). I'll check that so that we don't have to do that but instead end up with a 25 mile tail wind to finish. Hopefully I'll feel just as good tomorrow. If I feel good then I know I'm ready for the Longest Day. At the moment I'm very confident that I won't have any problems on the Longest Day (6/14 - 208 miles, Port Jervis, NY to Cape May Lighthouse, NJ).