When things go bump

I cycle therefore I fall.......a lot. 

Some people believe that I'm just a klutz (which I am, lol) and can't handle a bicycle but it's more a case of I train with mostly guys and thus tend to push kinda hard sometimes.  Thursday's fall wasn't quite that though. I'd gone out on a training ride to Griffithville with James and a couple of others and we ended up getting caught in a thunderstorm that was preceded by some fairly strong winds.  James & I were almost back to the shop incident free when the bike went out from under me in the middle of a turn.  Wasn't going particularly fast (12-15 mph) and wasn't on the brakes, just hit a patch of oil that hadn't been washed completely away by the rain.  Rain + oil + skinny tires = very, very, very slick :-(.  No time to unclip just felt the rear wheel slide out from under me and down I went on my left side & uttering a very loud "FUCK".  Quite an interesting sensation feeling my helmet-encased head bounce off the pavement.  Yeah, that would have busted the melon wide open.  Anyways got myself unclipped, got up to make sure there were no busted bones then rode on to the shop where we got my hoods back into place and made sure the brakes weren't hanging up on the rims.

This left me with road rash on my left leg and shoulder, big bump on my outer thigh, plus some bruising on my arm (can't see it because of the ink though) and face.  Oh and very, very, very sore.  Difficult lifting my arm up past shoulder height and couldn't sleep on my left side......It didn't crack my helmet but left a nice size dent.  Brand new helmet too, grrrr.

Anyways, good thing there was no permanent damage because I'd signed up for & even did some fundraising for the CARTI Tour de Rock, 62 mile option.  No way I wanted to miss that after the generosity of my friends in donating money!!! Thanks to them I met my $250 goal :-))))

Saturday..........it was hot at 5 am and there were heat advisory warnings so between the wipeout and that I knew there was no way it was gonna be fast for me.  My only goal was to FINISH the 62 miles this year.  Thankfully I found that once I started cycling the hip and shoulder didn't bother me too much but my neck was getting godawful sore, ugh......

Despite the wind my group was able to keep a fairly decent clip thanks to a couple of the guys pulling us along at 20-24 mph for much of the ride.  Oh yeah, that wind was hellacious. I took my turn at the front a couple of times and each time was getting knocked sideways as well as being pushed back by it.  Sometimes it doesn't pay to not weigh very much and have a lightish road bike.  It was during one of the sections that we were doing over 20 mph when the guy behind me said hey, I think you've got a flat.......yep, I was cruising along in the line at that speed with a flat tire thanks to being able to draft. 

Ended up having a small piece of wire in the tire that punctured the tube but thanks to the Searcy pit crew and a few missteps with the co2 cartridges they got it changed very quickly.  Still it caused us to lose a lot of momentum.  I wasn't the only one with a flat yesterday though.....there were flats & blowouts everywhere!  One of my friends ended up blowing out after our last rest stop.  Oh and water bottles were all over the roads.....combo of potholes and people missing their cages while drinking on the roll. 

James had opted for the 50 mile route and he caught up & passed me while we were changing out the guy's tube that had blown out so I pushed hard to catch back up & rode the last 10 miles in with him.  A couple we're friends with caught up with us during that time & we got to visit with them for a while too which was quite nice :-)))). 

Hopefully my finish line photos turn out good. I finally learned how to pedal without holding onto the bars last month and I went through with my arms upraised even though it was killing my left shoulder. Been wanting to show that off, LOL!!!

Huge thank you to CARTI for having this event, all the volunteers, & the sponsors.  Everybody was very enthusiastic and whenever I'd say thank you to somebody they'd reply with "No, THANK YOU for riding today".  Awesome, awesome event and the goody bags were fantastic.  When going through mine afterwards I literally squealed when I found that my favorite mascara was part of the swag this year.  There were even Arkansas Travelers tickets for that night--that would be my only grumble is that the tickets were only good for that one game. No way was I gonna be able to stay awake to drive back down for a 7pm start time.  As a matter of fact, I fell asleep during the movie we were watching and was in bed by 10 minutes 'til 9 last night.

upcoming CARTI Tour de Rock

Ok, I'm truly terribly awful about fundraising........believe it or not I am actually very shy so I have a hard time asking people to donate money even for really, really, really good causes and services like CARTI.  That is why a lot of time I'll just anonymously donate money for other people or just participate in events benefiting charities.  It's also why I'll probably never enter a large marathon as a charity runner.  Just don't have it in me to come out and ask people to donate in my name. 

BUT.......this time I'm stepping out of my comfort zone albeit a bit late (only 6 days left for the TDR, eeep!).  Please consider donating to the Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute even if it's not through my fundraising page.  If you do want to make a tax-deductible donation to help me out, you can do so here.  Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

Memorial Day Du for the Parks pics

Flags at the Transportation Depot

Transition 1

Leaving out of T1 for the bike portion

Coming in hard at the end of the bike portion

Gasping like a fish & praying I don't throw up at the end of run2

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I ADORE these people!!!!!!

Waiting for the kids du to start. The blue cap was my master's award

Elsie had the fire hydrant staked out :-)

Notice the death grip I have on the tree

uh, yeah............

Do you want to du?

This year is the 2nd one in a row for me to race the Du For The Parks Duathlon in Hot Springs on Memorial Day.  I quite like this one :-), the run portion is nice and flat, lol.  Since this was a repeat race for me I did have a time goal in mind, kinda wanted to knock 5 minutes off last years time of 1:14:13. Alas, it was not to be, mostly due to the fact that I have done ZERO brick workouts again and the very warm and humid temps were a sharp contrast to last year's unseasonably cool, misty day.  I was also still stressed, feeling a bit ill, and tired from Saturday's 8k.  Elsie also woke us up at 0327 sick as a......well, dog.....  Wow, queen of excuses aren't I?

Anyways, you'd think I was disappointed with my performance after that build-up but nope. I'm quite pleased with most of my race.

Breakdown of this year versus last year.  Note G/O stands for girl/overall, the placement of where I was after each leg.  2 mile run/12 mile bike/2 mile run.

2009  Run1  15:19         
2010  Run1  15:14  Not much difference here.  G/O 7/51

2009 T1  1:05
2010 T1  :54   Huge improvement on my transition time

2009 Bike  40:21
2010 Bike  38:37  My cycling is very strong this year.  G/O  4/42

2009 T2  :52
2010 T2  :31  I tied with one other woman on fastest time out of transition here

2009 Run2   16:38
2010 Run2   17:53  G/O 11/63 

2009 Overall time 1:14:13
2010 Overall time 1:13:06

6/44 females
48/117 overall
I won 1st place female masters

So a personal record here :-).  As you can see, my transition times were dramatically better than last year, the cycling time was a bit faster but my run times this year sucked.  HAVE TO DO AT LEAST ONE BRICK before the next duathlon in July!!!

A few thoughts about the race.....the heat killed me on the run.  I'd woken up several times Saturday night sweating out a fever and pretty much spent all of Sunday on the couch.  I should've sat this race out but I'm a bit stupid/stubborn sometimes (most of the time, lol).  During the first run I had chills and again I should've called it quits instead of pushing on.

Cycling this year is going very well, especially if you take into consideration that I'm only getting 1-2 rides in a week. Part of the reason for that is because of all the trainer work I put in while my ankle was sprained and the fact that I'm pushing myself to ride with the stronger riders in our area even though it means I'm usually at the back of the pack and they have to wait on me quite a lot.  Fortunately, most of the time the guys are very patient. This really paid off Monday in the rolling hills at Hot Springs.  I was passing guys the entire race going uphill.  Most of the time they would pass me right back on the downhills (darn aerodynamic tri-bikes!) but I was able to put quite a few of 'em behind me too.  What I need to work on here--being more aggressive when we get packed up and making sharp turnarounds.  After the turnaround point I ended up catching a group of guys and 3 times when I was passing, I ended up getting cut-off which left me with 3 options....1)run over 'em 2) grab the brakes or 3) move out into the opposing lane which was also against the rules.  I ended up grabbing the brakes but I was cursing them under my breath, grrrr.

Run 2 time sucked..........no ifs, ands, or buts........it sucked.  I was way slower than last year and while I'm usually slower on the second run portion anyway, it shouldn't have been that much.  Literally, I was shuffling and huffing like a freight train, my only goal here was not to stop because I knew if I took a walk break I wasn't going to be able to run again.  I thought I was going to throw up afterwards and I so did not want to be one of those who puked at the finish line :-(.

I did get several compliments afterwards.....one of the guys in the group that kept cutting me off came by and said that I was an extremely strong cyclist and one of the officials in/out of the bike area asked me how it went. I laughed and told him I survived, at that he told me that he thought I did EXTREMELY well.  That made my day :-))))).  My running club was very well represented with almost all of us, if not all taking home awards.  However I raced wearing my Bike City jersey.  Gotta give my favorite bike shop props & love, lol.