Sunday April 26, 2009

It was July in April this past weekend, the heat was setting records and I think the temperature was somewhere up in the 90’s.  I am going to tell you it was HOT, really HOT, very HOT…freaking HOT!  HOT! HOT! The route was 73.2 miles and with the wrong turn I made, I rode 75 miles and it was, once again, HOT!

We had a team fundraiser on Saturday at Patriots stadium so we cancelled the Saturday long ride and scheduled it for Sunday instead. The fundraiser was loads of fun, and there are a few pictures from team mentor Clare posted on the photos page.  It was a late night and I think those of us riding on Sunday all started our ride a bit tired, and did I say, HOT!

I had planned my food and hydration well, and Coach Allison planned a perfectly beautiful route, and despite the heat, I finished in good time (for me) with a 12.3 mph average, only minor sunburn (Thanks 70 SPF!), and in very good spirits!  It was the longest single ride I’ve ever completed, I made it up and over every hill, no breakdowns, no bonking, enjoyed the company of my teammates throughout the day and was encouraged in a way I hadn’t experienced before….It was a great ride!

Normally, I try not to include too many names in my blogs other than first names and rarely due I reference emails or thoughts of other’s because I try to respect everyone’s privacy, but Sunday morning prior to the ride, Coach Marc, the lead coach for the Tahoe team sent out an email to encourage us.  I’m going to have to get his permission, which I doubt will be an issue, but since he made some unsolicited remarks about me, I’ve included it in my blog to say thank you right back.  You have inspired me as well and who would have thought that I would be riding 75 miles in HOT weather and enjoying every single mile of the ride?

It should always be a good thing when you get to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, and I’m really amazed at how wonderful all the ride coaches have been and how much I’ve learned and improved in the last 3 months of training.  I am having a wonderful time and am excited that event day is so soon and also a little sad because event day is so soon and my terribly busy, terribly booked, terribly crazy weekend training rides will subside and I will be fighting like mad not to go back to being a couch potato after Tahoe.

Those of you who know me, know that 10 years ago I endo’d over my handlebars and compound fractured my left wrist.  I now have a titanium plate in my wrist and that accident kept me off a bicycle for 10 years.  However due to a brilliant orthopedic surgeon, I can still play guitar, albeit not as well (the wrist plate is a great excuse isn’t it?), but I can still play, and I still have full range of motion.  Then on one of my early training rides with TNT, I hit a hole on a very sharp left hand turn and flew head on into and over a guard rail and landed on the other side.  Almost totaled my bicycle as the fork, the shifters etc had to be replaced. Thankfully, I didn’t injure myself except for some minor cuts and scratches but it was a pretty scary incident.  I’ve always been a little accident prone, in fact, my mom’s nickname for me as a child was ‘Grace’.

That said, please read Coach Marc’s encouraging words:

“Is it Worth IT?

Team

Right about this time of season you hear me start to whine that I need a break,  I have sinks that need replacing, light fixtures that fall of the wall....  I will be completing my 7 consecutive fund raiser and 8th event as the Tahoe event coach.  Some times it is crazy as all of us coaches are worrying about did I do that cue sheet right, was it a left at mile 50 or should it be a right, was it mile 50 or maybe 51.  Did I push the riders to hard or maybe not hard enough.

We have an amazing group of coaches that are always helping me, a fantastic set of mentors and what can I say about our support staff Gail and our very own Lynn (who will be riding with us out in Montauk).  We have an honored teammate Gary that not only won his battle but flourished as he will be doing his second event out in Tahoe.  We have so many alumni that come back year after year like Bob B and Rob S.  Some alumni like Amy and Scott who started doing TNT events before I even knew what Leukemia was.  We have amazing teammates like Tamara who concurred Leukemia as a kid (She was a cutie as a kid and still is).  We have a father son team (Barry and Matt) that I am sure each of them are so proud of what the other is doing.  We have Zanne who crashes on one of her first rides and comes back stronger and more determined than ever.  Put all that together and you have a team that can do ANYTHING and have some fun along the way to boot.

We are always stressing where I am going to get the money to raise for events, but some how you do it.  How am I ever going to get up that hill, but you do.  Will that head wind ever go away.   There are those crazy fund raisers like working at the Patriots baseball game last night where I wonder will we have enough people, why aren't they training us on how to use those cash registers....  and then my son shows up to save the day and shows us how to work the cash register.  He also shows me why I keep coming back.  When I think of everything he went thru and never once said why me or complained.  He was never going to quit and neither should I.   If he can do it so can I.   We have to find a cure so no other family has to wake up some morning and be told their son or daughter has cancer.

So to answer my original question - YOU BET IT IS WORTH IT!!!!!!!

So thanks again for keeping me going as you all are my inspiration.

Coach Marc”

Thanks again for checking in…Have a Great Week, we’re on for 75 miles on Saturday  5/2/09 and 5 weeks to Tahoe and counting…!

Sunday 4/19/09:

I’m writing this blog a bit late due to 2 very hectic weeks for me.  Sunday’s ride was a cakewalk compared to Saturday.  My legs were screaming at me for the first few miles, but they shortly got used to the activity again.  The weather was beautiful and I really needed the recovery ride to flush the lactic acid out of my legs.  I spoke with Coach Allison about using gels and got some great advice about road food.  I’ll be planning my meal for next Saturday’s ride with a lot more thought and I think I’ll do much better.

Saturday 4/18/09:

What a challenging ride on Saturday 4/18/09.  I would say the most difficult ride to date.  The hills were large and non stop.  At least it wasn’t raining.  I made a note on my route sheet that says “BRUTAL HILLS”.  I blew a tire sidewall at mile 30 and had to wait for Coach Marc to come help me with a boot.  From there we rode approximately 3 miles out to a bicycle store to purchase a new tire for me and met up with my teammates back at mile 37.8.  I lost about 2 miles off the original route, and missed the Round Valley loop for the second week in a row.  The worst part about breakdowns is that your legs get cold and it’s hard to get going again.  One of my teammates calls this getting ‘rusty’ and I was all rust coming back from the blown tire.  I struggled for a good 10 miles before I started warming up again.  The afternoon got warm, and I had been experimenting with carbohydrate gels on the ride.  Little did I know that once you start with the gels, you need to keep going every 45 minutes or so, by mile 50 I began to bonk.  It was also very late in the day and most of the remaining rest stops on the route were closed, so we rode a bit out of our way for water.  I didn’t bring enough electrolyte replenishment with me so the last few miles were very painful.  I plan to do better next week planning my road food.  I heard a lot of my teammates complaining about this route, and it really was difficult, which took a lot of the enjoyment out of the ride.  I struggled and actually had to finish 3 particularly challenging hills by walking with my bicycle because I couldn’t bring my heart rate down low enough from the prior hill.  Once in awhile this happens to me and due to my asthma, I’m unable to catch my breath or get enough of a breath to continue and that means I have to get off the bicycle and walk up the remaining portion of the hill until my heart rate comes down a bit and I can breathe again. My coaches and some of my teammates worry about me when this happens, but my allergist says it’s just exercise induced bronchial spasm and that as I get fitter and increase my lactate threshold, this will stop happening.  I trust my allergist and my asthma rarely bothers me other than on these challenging rolling type hills. Over the last few months of training it’s gotten much better, thankfully, and it’s hardly an issue for me on most rides anymore. All things considered though, this route will make me stronger.  2 months ago Coach Marc told me he would have sent me home in the morning if I had shown up to ride this route and that made me feel good.  I have been improving, and given the difficulty of this ride, I did a good job.  I was able to eek out an average 10.1 mph for the ride.  I was totally disappointed with this until I spoke with some of my teammates who told me they usually average 15-16 mph on a ride and they were only able to average 12 to 13 mph on this route.  This one really was challenging.  I can’t say that enough.  The scenery was beautiful and had I not been so tired from the hills and the gels, I would have enjoyed the route scenery much more.  This route had lots of farm country and horses, rivers and really beautiful views.  One day I will redo this route and I will try to enjoy it a bit more.  This is one for the storybooks!