A First Time for Everything

Last night we did our weekly climb up Mt. Diablo and I encountered three firsts.
1) Flat tire
2) Fall - I unclipped right foot, bike leaned left. Wheeee - here I go! Just a scraped elbow & knee. I'm fine.
3) Bite marks on right knee/thigh - how does The Beast jump so high? I guess she was mad about the crash.

The ride was great. Saturday we have 80 miles in Marin.

Cycling Makes Everything Better

Saturday began as a horrible awful no-good day. I woke up at 5AM (too early) but finally fell back asleep about 6.30 (I need the sleep before the 70 mi ride. I woke up again, tired and hoping for some more sleep but when I looked at the clock it was 8AM. Yikes! I have to be on the bike and ready to roll in one hour.

I scramble through my morning routine, skip the usual pre-ride breakfast - no time! Run out the door and back inside a few times to grab forgotten water bottles, gloves, helmet. I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!

One sacrafice I can't make pre-ride is the Peet's coffee stop. Ugh! Ethiopian is the drip of choice today. I HATE ETHIOPIAN (coffee, not the people or the food) So I order a latte and pastry for breakfast. UGH! Latte is too hot to drink and it never cools during the drive. I arrive at Orinda BART and still have no caffine in my system. This ride is going to be hard.

I see Jen H getting out of her car so I pull in the spot next to her, make a face and miss the stop before hitting the parking bumper - SCRAPE!!!!! A very subtle entry.

Coach K.Sue gathers us all together with great news: the ride will only be 56 miles but there will be about 2800 ft of climbing. We head out into the shady winding roads of Orinda, riding in an unofficial pace line. All of a sudden everyone in front of me slows & the rider behind me screams (yes, screams) SLOWING! This throws me off, I can't stop in time, I swerve to the right to miss the bike inches in front of me, I manage to unclip enough to pad the fall, I land in a fluffy pile of fallen Oak leaves - soft? no. I'm up in 2 seconds and looking for a gap in the line to rejoin the team. Coach comes back down the line "Is there a rider down?" "oh yea, that was me... continuing the worst day ever"

I put my frustration into the pedals and ride - after about 20 miles my mind has wandered off and I'm enjoying the day. My ride group had four or five flat tires - so it turned into a long day. Seven hours on the seat is more than I wanted. But I finished strong and felt good through the whole journey. From Orinda to Danville to Pleasanton to Castro Valley to Moraga to Orinda. Phew!

One of the tiny hills of the day:
Turn baby, turn:

I know - my complaints are nothing compared to what cancer patients go through. Please help me help LLS find a cure. Donations still accepted I'm 68% to my fundraising goal.

Pardon the Interruption

Well it's been a busy & difficult few weeks. I apologize for the delays.

First I traveled north for a few weddings in one weekend. I hoped to get a ride in the altitude to work my lungs. Mother Nature had other plans.

I returned home with the stomach Flu on Monday & on Friday had to put down my dog, Timm. Saturday's ride will help to clear the cobwebs!

I was ready to roll for our 70 miler. However, "the beast" as she's now been named had other plans. Here's a picture of me explaining my gear issues at SAG stop 1. The cable tension was off and the problem was either caused by or exaggerated a cracked link in my chain. So what should have been an amazing ride of rollers and beautiful scenery through some of my dad's favorite day trip destinations was cut short. I left the ride at mile 45.

The bike has been fixed and I am ready for action this weekend. A new and interesting post to come soon.

Thank you for your patience.

Calaveras Road

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What an exciting weekend ride we had. To start things off we had the first weekend of rain, would the ride go as scheduled? No, rather than our early 8AM roll time coach pushed back the time to allow the roads to dry a bit. On our way to meet the team traffic came to a screeching halt and the highway was closed due to police action. Everyone from Oakland/Berkeley/SF/Marin was going to be stuck in this mess. We hit the road over an hour later than scheduled but had a beautiful ride from Dublin/Pleasanton BART to Calaveras Reservoir

It's great to explore so many areas of the Bay Area. Have you ever been to Sunol? What a cute little town. I want to go back & explore.

The ride included a 12 mile climb of 1,105ft and 1,032ft decent. Hills have been hard for me but Coach Marc complimented me on my cadence. It's good to know I'm improving. I'm still a bit nervous on the downhill since my hands are too small to comfortably grip my breaks. Coach Mark rode downhill with me and complimented my technique. So while I may not be the first up or down the hill at least I look good doing it!

A quick reminder of why I'm doing this:
Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma will cause the deaths of an estimated 52,910 people in the United States this year. These blood cancers will account for nearly 9.4 percent of the deaths from cancer in 2008 based on the 565,650 total cancer-related deaths.

Every ten minutes, another child or adult is expected to die from leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. This statistic represents nearly 145 people each day, or six people every hour.

Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults under the age of 20.

Help us find a cure for blood cancers with a donation?

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