After a nice little 1100 mile drive, we finally met up with the Rocky route in Whitehorse, YT. It was awesome to see everyone again, and we've been having lots of fun catching up on stories from the summer.

We had our first group ride together today, a nice short 155 kilometer jaunt through the middle of nowhere. We met up first thing in the morning and had our ride dedication; Martina read an inspiring email from a gentleman who they met in Calgary.

I took off with the front group, but I decided that they were pushing just a little too hard when my heart rate got up to 190 bpm on the first decent uphill grade. I dropped back a little and joined up with a slower group, but we caught back up with the front group when they took a long lunch break (by the way, we found out that the rockies were having grilled cheese and tomato soup at their lunch stop -- gourmet delicacies compared to our standard PB&J sandwiches).

After lunch, we had a nice single paceline going on, tearing it up with each person taking a 5 minute pull. It's great to have new people around to ride with and talk to.

We've been joking around a lot about the Rocky route towing rain clouds behind them; they've had terrible weather all summer, and we haven't been rained on since June 3 in Texas. It was drizzling a bit this morning, but our luck continued to hold out. True to form, the last riders in the Rocky route got rained on after all of the Coastal team got to our destination, and they were a bit wet when they arrived.