Fun, hilly ride to San Elijo and back

This mornings ride was a just under 58 miles. I rode out to the harbor to see if any of the usual group was meeting there anticipating that there might be one or two. No one showed up so I made up my own ride on the fly. A few of the riders in the group were doing an "Ultra run" this weekend which is running 100 miles in about 25 hours. Yes, that is frigin' crazy talk right there. People just weren't designed to do just that, but Joey, Eric and I believe one other rider are probably already finished with that run. Hopefully they were all successful on their run...
My ride today was riding from home, hit the SLR bike path and headed to the coast to see if anyone was going to meet at the Harbor for the usual Pendleton Sunday ride. No one showed, so I went south this time and headed inland on Poinsettia and up through Carlsbad to the top of San Elijo in San Marcos and back. As usual, you can click the title of this blog and see my actual route and ride data. The ride was to see how well I would do on some of the hilliest parts of the MS ride. I felt pretty good once I had 20 miles in and headed inland through the hills. The MS ride is a little different. I'll have 60 miles in before I hit the same hills instead of 20, but I did both directions (east and west) which more or less doubled up the hills and ended up with about 3000 feet of elevation climbing. It felt like more, but that is what the Garmin is telling me... It was a really productive ride and I feel more and more confident in my abilities to make this MS ride a very successful one. Last years ride really kicked me in the rear and I had more miles of training last year than I ever will for this years ride. I think the difference is the hill climbing that I'm doing this year. Riding all the way home instead of starting and stopping at the SLR bike path park at College.
Great Ride! No bees and no close calls with motorists...
I may end up doing a ride I saw from another Garmin rider that takes me to San Clemente and back to North County but then you do the Canon Loop, which puts the ride at about 90 miles with hills at the end. Much like the first day of the MS ride. I'm thinking this will be an excellent training ride for next Sunday...
Ohh; I also have a new contact from a rider I met that rides for 24 hour fitness. It might be fun to join a big ride group and it might not...