A coworker of mine found these photos laying around on an old roll of film and gave them to me this morning. They brought back some great memories.

2007 was the first year that Jane and I rode the Seattle to Portland Classic. It is 200 some odd miles from the University District to Portland, Oregon over one or two days with 9000 other completely insane people.

2007 was such a special ride for us though, because I only had three goals that year. Beat the crap out of some cancer, complete STP, and survive our (amazing) wedding. They all felt equally daunting at times too.

The cancer was no big deal… *cough* I finished my stem cell chemo around the beginning of April of that year, and I literally had four months to try and get back in to shape for what would be the longest ride I had ever done. I told all of my oncology nurses that I would be doing the ride so I wouldn’t back out of the whole thing. Some other friends had done it the year prior and I wasn’t able to, so I really want it.

Jane’s butt wasn’t excited to sit on a bike seat for two straight days (leather saddle or not), but she was more than supportive of the whole effort. We spent just about every weekend ramping up our training rides until we had it up to about 70 miles with hills. We weren’t completely prepared, but given the amount of time on hand, we did pretty well.

The home stretch in to Portland brought tears to my eyes.