buster britton sprint tri

the buster britton tri, mid june, was my first tri in 2yrs and i was a bit nervous. the day began with what was such a beginner mistake! i picked up my packet and my timing chip and promptly lost it! i guess i dropped it, but luckily it was found and returned to me. that used up a bit of my adrenaline for the day.

i set up transition, planning for rain and met my coach, eric doehrman with ironguides.net. he was so sweet and drove from huntsville to support me in this race. we reviewed the strategy for the day and he helped keep kay and i calm while we waited to start.

the swim turned into a really short one as one of the buoys took off down the lake in the storm that began just before the start! so it turned into about a 300yd swim which i did in 5:43. with such a short swim, i felt really good coming out of the water but it was quite a long run to transition and it had started raining.

i was ok with a wet bike course since it was a road i ride regularly. i could have practically rode it with my eyes closed. a great advantage knowing exactly what was coming and where to push it. i did have the problem of dropping my chain coming up the hill from the dam and had to get off and put it back on. that's where i lost my friend todd h. who i'd been neck in neck with. i finished the 12/13mile bike in 40:37.

the run started with the usual dead legs but went fairly well thanks to my new friend gary who ironically is also a friend of my coach!! we spoke on the run and he paced me nicely. i finished the 3 mile run in 25:53 which is fast for me and my knee problems.

when we went to check race times after, i was upset to not see mine in my age group. i was worried that it meant they might have not activated my chip after i lost it. thanks, though, to my friend todd g. who was workin the race i found them. he called me over and pointed to them and i was so shocked to find that they were in the section of those that had placed!! i had placed third in the beginner group with a total time of 1:16:08 / 31st out of 140. i could not have been more happy or more shocked. what a cool way to start back into racing and it's thanks mostly to my awesome coach who has made me faster already!! i finished the day with the cool experience of standing on the podium for the first time ever!

Ride of Love 2009

so cool to ride as a huge peleton!

arriving @ camp, i'm 6th back on right side

sweet child that thanked us for riding for her...*sniff*

the ride of love was an incredible experience! it is a fundraising ride for camp smile a mile (camp for kids with cancer) here in alabama. it is a 150mile ride for a reason. the woman who started it, stephanie wilkins, says that it NEEDS to be hard. because, in those most difficult moments we are to remember that nothing we are experiencing is anything compared to what these children and families deal with. what a humbling thought!

though it was 150miles, it was a million times easier than the 200miles kay and i rode in april, for many reasons. for example, instead of it mostly being just the 2 of us, there were 62 riders. in a group of 62 you find an incredible range of personalities, stories, jokes and entertainment! the ride is incredibly well supported. we had 2 motorcycle cops with us the whole way. this meant we did not stop at a single stop sign or red light, they warned the oncoming traffic of our presence and stopped the dogs in their tracks. this was so incredible, dogs are a serious risk to bikers, more for causing you to wreck than for biting (though i don't want that either), but they apparently really hate the noise of the sirens. i might just start carrying an air horn! there was also an ambulance (which thankfully no one needed!) and a van of mechanics. ahhhh, to be lance armstrong with assistance always at your finger tips. i will be forever spoiled!

even though it rained for an hour, we were so lucky. at home, it rained almost the whole day, but we rode along the dry edge of it for 11 of the 12 hours. this allowed the campers and their families to be lining the road and cheering for us as we rode into camp. this is a moment that will not be forgotten and caused a lot of grown men to have tears in their eyes....a truly beautiful site!

when the families came to mingle with us, the sweetest little girl came up to kay and i and thanked us for doing the ride for her as did many others. together, the 62 riders raised 108,000 for camp sam. that's tuition for over 500 children to attend camp this summer that otherwise would not have been able to afford it! i hope next year we will get many of our biking friends to join us and recommend you find a ride like it if you don't live near here!

3state3mountain, or 1st1mt--2times

so we thought all was going to be ok because here we are at the start with overcast skies but no rain! so much better than last years start which was delayed while we waited out the EPIC thunderstorm! but, after only a block or so, the rain began to fall. just before the bottom of suck creek mt. someone called out that emma had a flat....this was the nail in the coffin of my ride. we should have done what we normally would do, which is to circle back to the rider with a problem and help or at least wait on them. but noooooo, we decided to wait for her at the top of the mt. by the time i got there, the skies had unleashed with down pours, thunder and lightening!

it was plenty warm on the way up, but 60 degrees and soaking wet translates into FREEZING riders. we had to wait about 15min. for emma and david who had several technical difficulties before we started down. several of us were already shivering when we started down and the wind and long descent made it that much worse. the crazy newbie riders didn't make it any better, weaving in the road and even stopping in the middle!

at the bottom i had already decided i'd be bailing. to be honest, the thrill of repeating the ride from last year, but under less than ideal conditions, just didn't sound like fun. i had already conquered this challenge. it didn't help that the night before, logan (my 10yr old), told me he'd be praying that i didn't hurt myself! was this some kind of omen....lol!

so, those of us who've already completed the 100miler (jim,kay,abe,todd and I)all turned around and those who had never done it (kale, rodney, emma, willy, justin, chris and david) all went on. todd and i hurried back up the mt.(to warm up) and eventually hooked up with some people from florida. on the way back into town we all decided a drink was in order and went into tacomac *dripping* and had shots/beer. much more fun than freezing our a**es off!

jana and julie, who'd been planning on the metric(62miler) had the sense to turn around just after the crested suck creek mt. of course, i'd eaten like a hog the day before so i needed the return climb to burn some calories!

those who went on reported that it rained off and on for quite a bit longer but did allow them a dry descent off lookout mt. they were all very proud, but have to say i was very pleased with my VERY FUN weekend and the fact that i wasn't exhausted when i got home.

200miles in ONE day

that tiny dot @ the top is where we came from

kay and i at the rest stop @ the top of cheaha-mile 114-just over halfway :o


saturday, april 4th, 2009 my buddy kay and i took off at 5am from the colonade in b'ham for our biggest adventure yet. we participated, with 17 other crazy people in the heart of the south 200. a bike ride of 200miles with mt. cheaha (the highest point in alabama) at mile 100! it was dark as we started out, which really added to the adventure of the whole day. it's amazing how it being dark makes even a familiar road, a new experience. we started the day with 5 guys from indianapolis that had even brought their own sag car! kay and i have to work on this for the next adventure, anyone interested?

it got light an hour and half or so later as we were just getting into unfamiliar territory with a bunch of rollers. as expected, we lost our indy friends here (boys on rollers=FAST). it was just after this that it really hit home that we were pretty much out there on our own: 2 oddly dressed women in redneck land= kind of scary!

there were all kinds of ups and downs for me during the day. i've told several people that the hardest part is wrapping your mind around the idea of how many hours you will be moving. at about 10am i was thinking about how i'd been on the bike for 5hrs and that i would be on the bike for 8 or 9 more hours! unfortunately, this occured to me at about mile 75 which is a usual low point. i'm fairly unhappy for about 15miles every time i do a century (100miles). that's part of the strength it takes to do something like this. you just have to keep going and telling yourself it's going to get better!

part of the nerves for the day came from mt cheaha looming at mile 100, elevation 2,400ft in about 14miles. cheaha is at the southern end of the blue ridge mountains. i was relieved to begin climbing cheaha bc i was sure i would be so relieved once this was behind me. the problem with cheaha is, though, there are enormous rollers. you climb a hill and as you're descending down the other side, you can see the next climb looming up ahead of you. the further down you go= the further up you will have to climb on the next. it took what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time to climb cheaha, but once we were there....AMAZING!! we found out, at the top, that one group of indy boys was about 15min ahead and another just moments ahead!

it took all of about 5min to descend what had taken about an hour and 20 to climb. the pic across the lake is at the bottom of cheaha. then there were miles and miles of small rolling terrain. not bad on the legs, but a killer for the behind! the wind we had was no fun either, but we just set our sites on the next rest stop. thank goodness for the two men working those, oj is a must and we stopped at a couple of stores for cokes. one awesome thing is that i never eat candy bars, but felt free to have a couple of snickers that day, mmmmmmmm.

another mood elevator, was finding out that we were not last. there were about 5 bikers behind us. i don't have to be first at these kind of things, but it's very disheartening to be last. at the rest stop in talladega, we were at mile 145 and the miles after that to the familiar intersection of 25 & 43 seemed to take a lifetime!

once we were at the base of coosa mt.(known to us as the long side of 25) i was so relieved. it was 6pm, we'd been going for 13hrs & still had this mt. to climb, but i was soooo happy to be on familiar ground! i felt like a million dollars on that climb (mile 180). helped i'm sure by the coke and snickers i had 3miles before! i usually like to fly down the steep side of 25 (about 42mph) but was afraid to because i thought my exhaustion might make me unsteady. probably one of the few times in my life i've excercised some common sense!

it was just getting dark as we crested the hill on zeigler rd, the last bigger hill of the day! so, we came home like we started, in the dark. on rex lake rd and sicard hollow, i thought my left foot would explode and my right shoulder had quite a zinger in it, but knowing we were almost there made it all ok! we pulled into the parking lot 14hrs & 45min after we left--13hrs & 10min of pedal time (15mph avg). just as we'd hoped! a little anticlimactic with the 2 sag guys and 1 other cheering for us, but awesome to know WE HAD DONE IT!!

200miles in 2 days

Kay, Kale & me- Rodney calls us the stay @ home mom's...lol

Me, Kay & Justin gettin ready

Me, Kay, Kale, Justin, Marcus, Jonesy and Michelle--Rodney is takin the pic

Last Friday night i would have said it was impossible. the forecast was for severe weather going in the direction we were going to head. we were making our annual trip anniston to atlanta on the chief ladiga and silver comet trails. we met at the cracker barrel in leeds to eat (and i really thought, to go back home). but, being the crazy riders we are, we decided it didn't look that bad (and it was fine in alabama, but they were predicting severe weather still in atlanta in the afternoon). we started in anniston about 11:15am (temps in the upper 60s/low 70s) and only had about 10min. of sprinkles all the way to about 10miles out and then just mist. it was pretty uneventful except for all the mud/water. it was a long day of dodging spray from the guys in front (always try to pull when it's wet!). we stopped for lunch in rockmart and then finished up as it was getting dark in atl. we did have to find a hose behind the hotel bc we and our bikes were so nasty!!! we had some pizza, beer/wine and lots of water and hung out for a bit before all passing out (from exhaustion of course!).

We decided there was no reason to hurry out the next day as we were all tired and the front had brought cold weather with it, we were now looking at starting in temps of mid 40s! many of us were glad for the dry roads, but would have gone back to dodging spray instead of freezing to death (amazing how a change in one day can leave you so intolerant). day 2 really proved that i am not made for long flat rides, but my riding buddy kay was in her element. she just loved looking back at me and telling me to come on....kind of what happens when we're hoofing uphills at home. she motored along with no problem and i struggled to keep up. an excellent lesson in how it sucks to ride off the back! i couldn't have been happier to make it to cedartown (about 60miles out of atl) where we stopped for lunch. we were all more than ready to make it back to our cars and their heaters! so, kale, kay, jim, justin, jonesy, marcus, michelle, rodney and i all came back, no worse for the wear.

maybe next year we can have the sense to not go when the weather has such potential to be cold or when it's blazingly hot!(last year it was 101 on the way home).

as i write this, all that seems a long time ago and an easy ride. 2 days to ride 200miles and it much easier with a big group of friends. i'm focused now on this weekends attempt at 200miles in one day with just me and kay (none of our other riding friends going with us....one even called us crazy "witches";)

150 miles

ice baths are the bomb after any extreme effort! because of the ice bath, the morning after means very little soreness as opposed to barely being able to walk.

so, what was the extreme effort? yesterday, my buddy kay and i decided to ride 150miles in preparation for the heart of the south 200, april 4th (this is a 200mile ride that includes mt. cheaha -highest point in alabama- at mile 95). prep rides not only prepare your body for the effort, but give you so much valuable info. they show you areas of weakness as well as what works (like what short really work, is your bike fit right and what food/fuels work best).

we started the morning at 6 with abe and jim and rode easy(about 22miles) until about 7:20 when we met up with our bike shop (www.bikelinkbham.com) for their group ride. we rode with them for a fun 40miles from hoover to crestline. not enough can be said for the assistance/morale booster that riding with a group is. the talk/entertainment ;) is invaluable!

even one other rider can make all the difference! we ended the first loop back at my car to reload food/drinks and to pick up tom (got an added benefit and picked up todd, from the first ride, on his way home). we went back the way we came but, beyond to leeds.

we had one incident, beyond the usual horn blowing (what do those people think they're accomplishing? i'm gonna stop riding bc you blow your horn at me?!!) we were coming around a curve and a car was parked on the road, i could see the car coming up behind it, but couldn't believe when the guy came around on our side doing 40 in a neighborhood, on a curve! i don't know if he saw us before he came around but, because of how fast he was moving, he nearly hit kay! she slid and hit the ground, instead of hitting me or tom (thank you!). the guy stopped, but didn't even roll his window down and ask if we were ok! so, please use this as a lesson to watch for us annoying bikers!

kay hopped back on her bike (bc she's tough!) and we went on. when we got back to may car, we were about 12miles short of our goal so, we went on into kay's neighborhood to finish up. neither she or i can stand to stop short of a goal! we finished up 150miles in 10hrs(pedal time, 11hrs real time)--not fast, but not especially slow bc of the hilly terrain.

thanks to all our friends for helping/encouraging and to the hubs for letting us take to WHOLE DAY!

owwww

crater on the moon or what happens when you follow kale on a mt. bike? this was the souvenir i brought home from my firt attempt at mt. biking. maybe i shouldn't have clipped in?! or maybe kale should have warned me that the second bridge had a different ending than the first. the first was a very fun, 6inch bunny hop. then i heard kale yell at the end of the second, but i thought he was just havin fun and was too busy looking for deadly roots and rocks to watch him. so, when i got to the end of the second bridge, moving pretty fast, and saw 3 steps....well, as a newbie, i hadn't a clue what to do. pulling up....was NOT the right thing! it might have been ok but, keeping the front wheel straight, upon landing, is another good tip. mine wasn't--kale said it was an impressive fall. i could have told him that by the way it hurt! but, you jump up and hop back on, because (in the words of a friend) that's how i roll....ummm....or fall....

btw, this is my hip/thigh for those of you with wild imaginations

night riding

so in case i don't spend enough time during the day riding my bike, now i've found a group to ride with at night! this is waaaayyy too fun...IF you have a good headlight (might be something i need!). if you don't have a good headlight, it's a new world of thrill seeking, as you bomb down a hill without really being able to see the obstacles in your path! i did minimize the risk of this by following the line of a friend and when she bumped, i moved over (thanks Emma!). this method also works really well when moving at break neck speeds during the day. i have to say, if i hadn't been on my bike, i would never have had the opportunity to stop and admire the view over downtown b'ham. just one more example of why i love my bike and why it brings so much to my life.