Yes Vic, Ski-Lifts for sure, what you so glibbly call "carnage." See how you can artfully condense an hour of extreme suffering into one word .

But yes, I need the Ski-Lift climb for Sierra Road training. My theory is: Take my legs when they are really tired, have lots of miles and feet of climbing on them already . . . then ride the Ski-Lift climb (2,200 ft. in 4.6 miles) as effective training.

As you know (but some of our readers here may not), we hit Sierra Road with 150 miles and 15,000 feet of climbing on our legs. I want to be as ready for that as possible. Also, interesting note, on the Quack site it says the Sierra Road climb is 3.2 miles long. Dang , I would have sworn it was at least twice that long!

So, that being the case, Sierra is actually shorter than the Ski-Lift climb. Last Sat. I hit the Ski-Lift climb with 62 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing on my legs . . . and it was brutal (no surprise, right?). That was my 3rd Ski-Lift climb in 2015. My goal is to be so much more ready for DMD after having experienced it once (an educational experience!).

I will send warm clothes to both Pet the Goat and the final (Sunol) checkpoint. Oh, and use full shoe covers for Mt. Diablo too.

Also, at first, Peg Miller ("Just give me a bullet, please.") said she wouldn't be riding DMD this year but now she says she is; so that's all good too .

Rick / OCRR