1 year ago

5/21/11

A few weeks ago, I received a comment, as I was getting ready for one of our long rides. “You look like an athlete!” Hmmmm. I don’t think of myself as an athlete. Yesterday I was called a hero. I don’t feel like one.

I am just me.

I bought my bike and cycling gear just over a year ago, after thinking long and hard about doing a century ride with Team in Training. I vividly remember the day my friend was training for her marathon with TNT-she was running 19 miles up towards Lucky Peak. That same day, I passed my Broker’s exam for Real Estate and wanted to find her, cheer her on, and tell her the good news. When I found her, she was over halfway done and was headed back-in pain due to knee problems. We talked for a couple of minutes, and I offered to take her back to her car. She said no-she needed to do this. I said, “OK.” As she took off, her coach stopped and asked when I was going to start training for a marathon. I said not with the knees that I have. Then he asked about a century ride? I remember saying something like; my back and neck go out of whack pretty regularly, so-no. He said thanks for supporting my friend. My friend couldn’t quit, even when she was in pain, because her mom fought cancer for 3 years and didn’t have the option to quit. Just a few weeks after my friend started training for the marathon, her mom passed away.

We are down to 12 days until our event in Tahoe. Last week we rode our bikes to Idaho City from Boise, a 71-mile ride. This week, I’m doing a lot of stretching and am taking a ride either Tuesday or Wednesday-probably the dump loop. This Saturday is our “last” long training ride before our event…80-miles. Where? I don’t know yet, but I’m sure it’ll be a decent representation of what AMMBR will look like. After the ride, we eat BBQ. Yu-u-u-mmm-y! And prepare our decorations for our helmets.

The ride to Idaho City was fantastic, but it was not without incident. (No one was seriously hurt, just a bike, a skinned knee, a few bruises, and a bellyache.) The weather was gorgeous. The bantering was enjoyable. The pace line was fast and “fluid”. It was nice riding beside the creek, smelling the pine trees, feeling the fresh air on my nose, and breathing deeply, not from lack of oxygen and due to heart pounding, but because of deep contentment.

71.11 miles

5 hours 6 minutes. (?) I bumped my computer and lost the data for the first half of the ride

14.6 Average Speed (for the 2^nd half of the ride).

33.5 Max Speed (for the 2^nd half of the ride).

Total Miles on my bike: 1,643.5

Total Flats-1