5000 miles

so i reached my goal of 5000 miles for this year on 12/26/08 on a fun ride with my bike buddies jim and kale!! though, i hated that kay and i couldn't reach it together. she will reach it this week while i'm out of town. until recently, i thought this was a lot of miles, considering i could go across the country and back. but then i met a ultracyclist and have to say, 5000 doesn't seem like so much now. my friend, steve, hit 13,000 miles christmas day! and i thought i didn't have a life beyond my biking! so, now i have to make goals for next year and i can't decide if i need to ride more miles or if kay and i will do a halfironman or maybe BOTH. kay and i are currently planning an ultra event for feb. in sebring, fl. we will ride as many miles as possible in 12hrs. as far as other goals, they remain to be contemplated and made!

Almost there!!

after tomorrows 100 miles, i'll only have 35 more to my goal for 5,000 in 2008! i'm sooooo excited. what goals for 2009? a half ironman? sebring 12hr race? do i dare think about a full ironman?? i so want to hear....april, you are an IRONMAN!!

the sites the first 2 hours

now i get up willingly at 5am to be ready for a 6am ride, but 3:30am for a 4:15am ride?!! this bike has way too much power over me. actually, the 4:15 was all about the two ironmen friends we (kay and I) were going with. mike and ken are doing ironman arizona, but are such awesome family men that they leave early to get back to spend time with their families.

the first two hours were in the dark which can be very exciting, especially with the two miners 49ers (they had headlamps that roamed wherever they looked). so, all we saw was what's in the picture (minus the snow bc i photoshoped this pic). sunrise on your bike, is a pretty cool thing, though! i felt pretty good up to mile 86, by then ken quit hurling while riding (a talent only bikers can appreciate), but i think the hilly route/fast pace was getting to me.

we finished in 7hrs and 45 mins (before noon- making the start time ALMOST worth it) with an avg. of 16mph. it was hard, but not as hard as i thought it would be. let me say, not as hard on my LEGS as i thought it would be--now my butt and shoulders were a completely different story! of course the ice bath helped all of that. i am definitely built more for endurance than speed. this half ironman might happen after all.

a bunch of smurfs at the ms 150

this was the second year a group of friends and i went to the beach to ride the multiple sclerosis 150 (75 miles saturday and 75 miles sunday). this is always a fun time and how could it not be considering it was at the beach! this year jana, kay and i had an interesting "girls" weekend because we added kale (a guy) to the group. i have to say he fit in very well considering that we're not very girly and he was very easy going and made his bed everyday! ya gotta love a tidy man (and he's available ladies)!

saturday we met up with the rest of "team green" (that's mostly blue-go figure-men made up the name)for what i would say is one ugly picture. we're on the second row starting from the left, the first 3 girls(kay, jana and i) then kale next to me. we tried to hang with the fastest men the first day and only made it about half way as they were averaging about 24mph. kale could have hung with them, but was kind enough to hang with the girls. we came in with an avg. of 19.2mph--pretty good considering it was not remotely flat. leave it to a bunch of bike ride organizers to find some decent rolling hills even at the beach! we went out that night and managed to eat dinner twice(one of the best reasons to ride so many miles!). day 2 we avg. 19.4, about 3 miles an hour faster than the year before(guess all those miles are paying off).

we did get time on the beach saturday and had some interesting conversations. I'm sure they were aided a bit by exhaustion. we also met some seriously interesting characters. as i've said before, the biking community is full of them. i would give a million to have a few pics of some of them! we had a punch drunk drive home sunday, after a total of about 186 miles in a weekend. all the girls decided it was a successful weekend after kale declared he was skipping all future guys weekends for the girls weekends!

why you get out of a warm bed

so why would i get up at 5am? this is why. this is the sun rising over brocks gap. not only is this beautiful, but i am listening to some great tunes and between the music and the pedal strokes i am at peace in my head. now that is a beautiful thing! i am also on the way to meet some of my biking friends and they are just a great group of people that i really miss when i don't get to ride with them. when i get done, i will be tired in one way, but ready to get things done. days i ride are always better days!

i do things other than riding

i'm just in a blogging mood today, but tired of talking about riding. so here's a pic of me in our kayak which i absolutely love!!!!!!! it's especially great when you stay in a cabin that's right on the water so, you can leave the kayak at the edge and jump in it whenever you want, say 10pm after a few margaritas. what better time to call your friends and besides, the best cell reception was in the middle of the lake! we were at vogel state park in georgia with our friends cheryl and kevin for a few days of relaxation! we did some bicycle riding, but i'll save that for later, and i rode with kevin on his very cool bmw motorcycle (great roads in the georgia mts. for a motorcycle)!

don't ya just love pink...lol

so after 3500 miles this year, i for sure needed new tires and what would be better than tires with pink side walls? i just love passing a guy on a hill all decked out in pink. not nice, but sooooo fun. come on, you know you love to kick some ass out there! besides, what car could miss me?

ice cold beer after 107miles...PRICELESS!!!!


you can check out the healed version of the shoulder wound in this pic...

silver comet ride o8

who knew that 200 miles could go so fast and so slow all at the same time! a bunch of riders(and i would now call them all friends, bc that's what biking together does for you) drove to anniston and then rode the chief ladiga and silver comet trails to atlanta last saturday and back on sunday. this was a total of 208 miles, though should have only been 202 (and let me say, when you're approaching 200, every mile counts!) but for the typical navigation of men--aww, we'll figure it out, maybe down this piece of dirt road. they're called ROAD bikes for a reason, kale! right after the thriving metropolis of cedartown, where you apparently throw your chicken bones in the road, you go off trail to some side streets for a bit. but it all turned out fairly well if you don't mind following some colorful locals in their car.

it was just after cedartown when we came out of the shaded trail and into the direct sunlight for what seemed like forever. i've had trouble all summer with the heat, but you know when you have chills and it's a hundred degrees, it's just not good! thankfully we lunched and cooled off in rockmart and i realized what i really needed was to soak my head and jersey (can't begin to say how incredibly helpful that is!!). we had reservations for dinner that night, but have to say that beer and pizza by the pool could have not been better!

we were very fortunate to have had abe's sweet wife, gail, drive our belongings over and wait patiently in the parking lot for us to arrive. we stayed at the la quinta just 3 miles from the trail and it was nice to have sidewalks all the way so some very tired bikers didn't have to dodge atlanta traffic. i'm sure this was all part of our fearless leader, jim's plan--along with the iced beer in the back of gail's car (mmmmmmm!). though it sounds like we drank a lot of beer, we were all safely in bed by 10 wondering if we'd lost our minds thinking of riding back the next day!

the return trip on sunday was pretty uneventful and we all made it back safely, wondering how the tour de france riders do that everyday for 21 days!!! truly amazing athletes! i felt pretty great on monday (endorphines are wonderful!), but it all came crashing down tues., after our morning ride. i have never felt so tired and depleted. i, stupidly, rode again thurs. morning and then realized recovery is also a very important part of training. i started saying i was taking a week off, but have to say, 2 days into it, i only think i'll last until the tues. morning ride. well, i do LOVE my bike!

is it worth it? OH YEAH

so, this little beauty mark occured 12 miles into the sonoma ride (which was supposed to be my first century-100miles). BUT, i did get back on my bike, concussion and all, and ride 55 more miles. some called this stupid, i call it determined.

freak accidents just happen, which is why you ALWAYS wear a helmet. the guy in front of me hit a water bottle which then spun into my front wheel. a very tour de france kind of flip then occured, which is what happens when you go from 25 mph to 0 mph in a half a second!

Cool experiences and riding with friends

As i said, riding with friends is one of the best things about riding, but riding in interesting places makes it even better! a group of us raised money for several months and then were flown to sonoma, california for a benefit ride for juvenile diabetes. they just happen to be having a peanuts festival-sonoma is the home of the charles shultz museum (went there instead of a winery, maybe i'm stupid, but i love snoopy!). how can your spouse say no to a trip (even a cool one) when your raising money for such a good cause! and of course, you have to go a day or two early to enjoy the sites.

my younger child's best friend has juvenile diabetes (that's his mom on the right) and she got me into this ride, but if there's a cause out there, there's probably a benefit bike ride to help support it. jdrf (juvenile diabetes research foundation) has 5 rides every year all across the country, in some pretty cool places. you can check them out at www.ride.jdrf.org . but i've been involved in a few other's as well. in our hometown, birmingham, alabama, we just had the tour de cure. this ride raises money for diabetes as well--check them out at www.tourdiabetes.org and we are currently preparing for the MS 150. this is a two day event where you ride 75 miles on two consecutive days. a cool challenge and if you live in alabama, you get to do it at the beach, woohoo!! their website is www.bikems.org , this ride takes place in 100 different cities all over the country.

now some of these rides may sound overwhelming, but often, they have shorter distance rides for those just getting into biking and you can't beat the love, fun and support of people dedicated to a cause.

why i ride

yeah, biker as in bicycle not motorcycle. why do i ride, well, lots of reasons, but the biggest is freedom! i mean the kind of freedom you had as a kid the first day of summer. as you get older, that feeling gets harder to achieve. life has a way of weighing down on you, but my bike makes it easy. are you one of those people, like me, whose mind runs 90 miles an hour, all the time. well, not on the bike, cause if you're not paying attention, you'll be off that bike in a second and it might be just a bit painful! i have the scars to prove it, but that's a topic for a later posting.

cycling is also a great way to meet friends. because you're out having fun, most people are in a good mood and friendly. you meet all kinds (really ALL kinds) of people and i love that! you hear their stories and perspectives and that is the coolest wether i agree or not. so, if you're looking for that something that will give you some exercise, is fun and will help you put all the "crap" of life behind you, think about this. and i didn't look like that when i started so, you don't have to be in shape when you start either.