make a wish

Last Saturday was my birthday. 31, thank you very much.

My mother made me an elmo cake.

Yes she did.
I made some wise-crack the other day about her making me a big-bird cake like when I was 6 and when I showed up at the parental home on Sunday night, Elmo awaited me.

My mother is a good cake baker! Mummm chocolate, my brother did an outstanding Elmo impression (who knew Chad watched Sesame Street) and I marveled at Liz's ability to work with frosting.

All that celebrating reminded me of another picture, another cake, another birthday. This is a shot of my Aunt Pat's birthday in 1976. That's my guess, anyway, because I think the candles on the cake represent 32. (three and two, Grandma must have been trying to save money).

After this there would be a few more birthdays. She died at 37.

Chad (mr. two-year-old next to Pat in the photo) is turning 34 next week. There are different echoes of loss as he and I come closer to mirroring the age of Ken and Pat's parting. I see my parent's loss more clearly, I suppose, and empathise with them anew.

So my birthday wish: To treasure what's here. My parents and brother eating elmo cake. Birthday cheesecake in Oregon and some other treat with friends in Atlanta. Having the congregation sing Happy Birthday to me in worship and riding my bicycle 4o miles on the morning I mark 31 years in the world. Pretty great gifts, if you ask me.

40 miles

Saturday 12:30 a.m: Land at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport after 12 hour trip from Portland International Airport. (see previous post re: grichiness about flying)

12:50 a.m: Reunite with dog. That's always a good moment, isn't it?

1:03 a.m: Discover shampoo has leaked in my bag. Massive clean-up effort required before sleep.

1:57 a.m: Finally wind down enough to fall asleep.

6:15 a.m: Alarm rings beginning preparations for the day's group ride.

7:12 a.m: Wheels rolling. Weird weather, foggy and 70 degrees. Mist continually condensing on my glasses leaving me to wonder if a rag or rain-x or tiny windshield wipers would be the best solution.

8:11 a.m: Joe, who is riding behind me, tells me that green goop is coming from my back end. (nice visual). Upon inspection I see that the "slime" in my slime-tube (to instantly fix flats) has some how sprayed all over my bike, my leg, my shoe and Joe. Sorry Joe!

8:14 a.m: Unable to find source of slime leak. Continue ride from back of the pack to spare anyone else the green spray.

8:50 a.m: Riding on a country road NE of Wichita. Small jack-russell terrier darts from farm house into the MIDDLE of our pack. Dog hit by one or more bicycles. Two riders crash. One seriously scraped. Dog runs away still barking, apparently unharmed. Being at the back of the pack I escape the crash but have to watch it happen. Not pretty.

9:05 a.m: More slime erupts from my rear tire, this time spraying Lori in the face. Sorry Lori!
I slink back to the rear position.

9:08 a.m: Stop at Kwik Shop. Travis changes my rear tube. Small thorn found in the tube, source of the escaped slime. I decide the manufacturer should put warning on the box. True, my tire did not go flat. But I slimed my teammates!

9:18 a.m: Dale declares I will now be known as "slime girl." I declare I will never buy slime tubes again.

10:12 a.m: 40 miles finished. How did I do that on 4 hours sleep? Exercise induced endorphin high leaves me unconcerned. Another good day.

Vacation

I wish I had some amazing pictures to show you from my vacation to the great Northwest. But I don't.

Seems the Bergies camera has taken to eating batteries. And of course I am such a cheapy that I don't own a digital camera. Or a microwave. Or cable. Not that those last two would have helped with the pictures.



So the only shot I have is of my first outing on a wave-runner. It's posed, when I was on the water I was actually wearing a PFD. Saftey first, after all. No matter what Miss Brodie says. Good thing since I almost slung myself off of it a few times. I liked it but it was not the most fun of the vacation. I definitely prefer non-motorized recreation. The rock-climbing and hiking and mountain biking were much more fun, but alas, undocumented.


Newsflash: it sucks to fly. Don't plan on getting anywhere on time. I saw (and experienced) people having delays and cancellations and missed connections all over the place. Disheartening to me when the ticket was so pricey in the first place. But of course it was worth it to be with my Bergs and be in Oregon and be gone from work and remember that there are lots of parts of me that have nothing to do with sitting in my office chair or typing on my computer.


Vacation time makes me feel like a real human being again. Or a whole human being again. I don't know what that says about my routine at work or home except that it is filled with pressure. It is easier to feel whole when you have room to breathe.

Wake up!

I'm groggy.

That's not unusual for Monday morning but this is body tired not just emotions tired. My first clue was that I sounded like a bass until about eleven o'clock this morning. That plus lots of stretching required to get unkinked from sleep and a few yawns show me that we are definitely in training mode. Most of you know that I don't get up easily, ever, but after 9.5 hours asleep I sort of expected to start the day a little fresher. Must have had something to do with 15 miles last night after a typical Sunday morning. Per my training schedule, Sunday "recovery rides" seem important to the process of building endurance. I suppose Monday sleepiness will be a part of the next three months.

As will eating. This weekend I noticed I have become ravenous again. I have experienced this in the past but usually not until the last few weeks before an endurance event. I am a full three months away from the century ride and already this weekend I approached each meal with a voraciousness that would make the casual observer think I hadn't eaten for days. I did ride 77 miles last week and ran one day. But we've got a long way to go. What will I feel like when that weekly mileage doubles? I guess we'll see.

The group ride this weekend was great fun. Another of Coach Travis' routines at some point during the morning is to go down the line and ask everyone by name how they are doing and then answer his own question with a little ditty that includes "there's no where else I'd rather be than right here right now!" As I heard him yelling that out on Saturday I reluctantly had to agree.

The second time out with the group was less stressful and less confusing. Two brand new riders this week means we are up to 19 riders for Tucson. Even in a double paceline we are at least as long as a city bus. I'm not sure we are much slower either, who likes to drive behind a bus?

Two important learnings from the ride...

Lori has x-ray vision. She is always the first to see any debris, gravel, hole, in the road and shout it out to the rest of the team. It doesn't even matter where she is in the line, she sees it first. So riding behind Lori will be a very safe position, if a little loud.

Paula is the sugar shack of our train. We were talking before the ride and found a mutual fondness for knowing when we can next eat. She called it a "food-phobia" but I think she is just well prepared. I told her I occasionally have issues with low blood-sugar and so I like to always have food handy. Really I just need to have Paula handy because she starts every ride well stocked. Mid-ride we had to pull over to check a tire and she came up to me with some "sport beans." Think Jelly Bean made from Gatorade. They were GOOD! I only ate four but felt like I could fly on the next miles. I do realize it was all in my head.

Oh, one update. Seems the crash last week was a little more serious than anyone thought. Heidi fractured her radius (in case you forgot the lessons of tenth grade biology that's one of the two bones in your arm). So Dale's statement about no broken bones in TNT is now out the window. I feel badly for Heidi but crashes are part of living. We fall. We break. We heal. And now our whole team pays a lot more attention to the people in front of them. That's good.

I will miss next week's ride to be in Oregon on vacation. Hopefully I'll be able to post pics from Amy's Annual Adventure 2007.

TNT FAQ

First group ride today…many questions were answered.

Q: What time will we start?
A: Six @$#% Thirty in the morning. Luckily as temps cool and the sun rises later, so will we.

Q: What will a paceline feel like?
A: Odd…at least at first, to get so close to other bikers going 15mph or more. I know it will get easier with more miles. Loud…lots of yelling out commands, “hole, slowing, take the lane, going, one line, debris on right, car back” With 6 adrenaline pumped alumni and 5 nervous rookies it was loud and confusing at first, people yelling at every tiny thing. Challenging…It took concentration! To not run into the person in frontof me, at least. I am sure it will soon become an intuitive way to ride.

Q: Will we crash?
A: Yep. Some poor clip management at a stoplight led to our first crash of the season just 10 miles into group training. It happened in the middle of Douglas and involved our “guest rider” whose 3 yr old son is a Leukemia survivor (she rode for TNT a year ago). Only two people went down, none really hurt. I was told no one has broken a bone in a TNT crash, not in recent memory, at least. I said the paceline took concentration!

Q: How will the team dynamic be?
A: Good. Very good actually. Quality people with very different personalities. It was a fun day of first impressions. There are so many alumni (riders with at least one TNT century to their credit) it feels like us newbies will just be carried along.

Q: What will it mean to have a coach?
A: A pre-ride pep talk and a team cheer. Yep, a team cheer. I am not really a “cheer” kind of girl. You can imagine the suppressed smirk on my face the first time it happened. Of course as the pep-talk and testimonies got going before the ride I kept thinking what we needed to do was pray. Whoops! Guess who's been ensconced in church a little too long! Don’t worry, I was yelling away by the end of the morning.

Q: Is that all Coach Travis does?
A: Lord, no. He is organized and confident and in control of the ride. He’s a good teacher, passionate about TNT, and can yell really loud. Today he was constantly moving up and down the line checking in, giving instructions and encouragement. A great comfort to me, already.

Q: Is it possible to get “runners trots” on the bike?
A: Yep. This is an affliction that often affected my sensitive stomach after long runs. I always contributed it in part to poor hydration, and I think that was a factor today. Even though we started early it was humid and hot. I was concentrating more on not crashing than on drinking water. I’ll have to work on that.

Q: What will be the worst part?
A: Waiting a whole week before we do it again :)

In process

August 1st. Two months since I mailed out my fundraising letters and I have received $2120 in contributions to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. WOW.

Thank you.

If you would still like to contribute, there is plenty of time. I would like to have the money raised by September 15th so I can focus in on training. That is 2 days before my "recommitment" date (as if I were wavering at this point!)

I took my bike in for a maintenance check this morning. Thought a once over after the wreck would be a good idea. And a clean chain and drive train would be a nice way to start the official training process.

Coach Travis sent out the first training schedule last Wednesday so here is when it gets serious. Up until this point I have been riding as I want, when I want. Now I have a piece of paper with goals for the day and the week.

A schedule. A plan. A process.

Some might chafe under such restrictions. But not me. I thrive. I love the organization, the structure, the satisfaction of watching the days tick by, the progress made, the strength gained. I love that the 100 mile week scheduled for 9/1 looks daunting to me now and by the end of this process it will seem laughably easy. Oheee. I am excited!

Our first group ride is this Saturday. Stay tuned for a report. Travis put as a header on his e-mail "Why does cycling matter...because when you are riding, nothing else does."

Is that true? I think I want to rephrase it because rather than forget about the rest of my life when I bike I enjoy having space to think and reflect and gain perspective on work or relationships or whatever. I don't' have the right re-wording yet. Perhaps it will come to me on tonight's ride.