My legs are tired this morning. They usually are when I've ridden a century the day before, but I'm not accustomed to riding up Wawawai Canyon at 8 to 10 mph and then holding 17 to 20 across the 12 miles to Pullman. Fortunately Doug and I dialed the pace back a bit on the return on 95 from Pullman.

The forecast hadn't bee encouraging. Good chance of rain on Saturday both in the valley and on the Paouse. Rain had fallen on me a couple of times during my weeks' rides. It had been light and I'd always been close to home. Going down to Wawawai and up to Pullman was going to be pushing my luck. But the temps, though, reported to be cold by the weather types, seemed about perfect to me. I always look forward to the temps warming to the mid sixties. That didn't sound cold to me and the winds were 'sposed to gust to 8. I cold for the Wawawai Canyon ride.

Nothing from Dave, Chris, Jim, Doug. Everyone was silent on the subject of Saturday's ride. Fair weather riders the lot of you, I say. Doug, at least, checked the weather out his window on Saturday morning and gave it a go. The sky was blue and cloudless and stayed more or less so until noon when clouds were building up around us and looking particularly dark South over the valley.

Down River Road isn't our favorite. Doug complained about the route when he road this route in reverse a few weeks ago.

We caught WSU Crew having a race.

I hadn't expected to see anyone least of all Doug. But after our stop to refuel at the Crew Boat House, we found Chris, his new grey vandyke bristling in the morning sunshine. "You're late," he complained. It was 9:30 and I had an 18 mph average. We'd had a light tail wind from Lewiston.

"Why are we waiting for him," I asked Doug as Chris took off his arm warmers. I rolled off knowing Chris wouldn't just catch us but bounce out ahead as he always does.

Doug doesn't know Chris that well and he had never climbed Wawawai Canyon. In addition, he's a bad judge of pace. Seemed like he thought he was going to catch Chris. I knew that Chris wasn't tired when he weaved out to the center of the road. Old School, he won't wear a mirror. He was checking to make sure his "companions" didn't get too close. We fell into a steady pace that kept us separated by a couple of hundred feet. I wasn't liking having to work quite this hard but I didn't want to be dropped. I managed to catch Doug just before the top.

I had the heart monitor on and think I was running in the mid 160s most of the time. That scarcely had a chance to drop on the way into Pullman. Still my average heart rate for the day was 135 so I guess I was just having a great workout. Thanks guys