I almost made it...

to the end of the year without a crash! I met up with a few guys this morning for what was supposed to be a quick ride down to Laguna Beach and back before I had to take care of some last minute Christmas duties. I was excited to get out. Marcellus had been sick all week and I had not been on the bike since Monday, so it was a treat to slip this last minute ride in.

Right before our turnaround point I told the rider in front of me to "turn up there" and not realizing that there was an "up there" before the "up there" that I was referring to, he started braking to make a quick turn and I couldn't slow fast enough and caught his rear wheel. I saw it coming and hit the road pretty hard, my left elbow and thigh taking the brunt of the fall. My first reaction of course was..."is my bike okay?" Ahhh...I'm so proud of myself...I'm becoming a true roadie. ;) The bike was fine, save for the saddle being askew and slightly scuffed and one of the brifters being jarred. Once I was sure that my bike was okay, we moved off of the road and assessed the damage. Jacket ripped and removed, same with the arm warmers...peeled them off and there it was...my first true road rash! My elbow was already swelling so we headed across the road to Diedrich's so I could clean up.

As I walked into Diedrich's I realized for the first time, that the large picture windows provided the patrons with quite a show. Heads turned and it clicked that all of these people had seen me go down. I felt like slinking out of there as quickly as possible, I thought I might die of embarrassment at the thought of having such a large audience. While I waited to use the restroom, the guy making coffee drinks told me that he "heard" me go down and offered me some ice and a bandage. We sat around outside drinking coffee for a bit before one of the homeless men outside offered to give me mouth to mouth to help me out. Such a kind gesture...thanks, but no thanks buddy. ;)

We set off north on PCH again and I was able to make it back without any trouble, so I'm pretty sure that all I'm dealing with is some serious bruising...both the body and the ego. I'm glad that I was able to laugh it off right away...as badly as it hurt, I wasn't about to cry in front of the boys!

Such a blog slacker...

I know that I said that I wouldn't be and really, there isn't any excuse for my lack of bloggage, other than...well, yeah...like I said...no excuse! I could get all New Years Resolution-esque and promise to blog daily, but we all know that's not going to happen, so I won't bother. I will say that with an increase in training, I do hope to blog about my progress more often, especially once I get my new toy into my hot little hands...



...because we all know that GPS, speed, cadence, elevation, graphs and charts will make me a better cyclist! ;) So ummm...Merry Christmas to me! :)

Speaking of Christmas, this is the year for me. The year that I fought off the urge to buy heaps of useless toys for the kids that will be carelessly tossed aside in the days following Christmas, or even worse...not used at all. This year the gifts were purposeful...for the older two at least.

Gavin is getting his road bike, which when I paid for it, was a '05 Trek 1000 KDR. I went to pick it up yesterday morning and found out that it had been sold to another customer. I had worried about this happening when I paid for the bike back in September, considering that they store them on the floor with just a tag indicating that they have been sold, and then again on my way there yesterday, the thought crossed my mind again. Sure enough, the bike had another name on it and they went scrambling to try to find out what happened and how they could fix it. I sat and waited while they tracked down another bike for me and promised to have it delivered to the closer location that afternoon. Much to my delight, they hooked me up with a '06 version of the bike, and I'm much happier with the color scheme...



When I picked the bike up this morning, I couldn't stop smiling. Little does Gavin know that I have visions of molding him into a future pro cyclist. Poor kid just thinks he's getting a road bike for Christmas. ;)

Avery is getting a nice digital camera for Christmas as the girl can't keep her hands off of my camera and I just don't like to share. After some research I settled on the Canon A530 and some scrapbooking supplies.




Marcellus is harder to shop for...he has so much and wants so little. I ended up getting him a video game that he'd asked for and some cars from the Cars movie.

All three of the kids are also getting iPod Shuffles...which reminds me that I wanted to fill them with some music before I wrap them up. They enjoy music so much, and I think that these will be a big hit with them.

Overall, quality won out over quantity of presents this year and I am ecstatic about that. Happy Holidays to all of you!

Change in plans...

I'm back in for Butterfield Double Century on February 17th. This means that I need to get serious about training...NOW! I should have a couple of weeks when the kids are home from school and I'm free from drop-off duty where I am able to get in some extra rides to jump start the increase in mileage.

Holiday party...

the night before a century ride...I'm such a dumb ass. Someone really should have cut me off last night...lol. ;) Here I am, at 5:17 a.m. leaving my house in less than thirty minutes to go ride a hundred miles and I'd bet money that there's still Malibu Rum flowing through my system. Nice.

Reflecting and looking ahead...

As the year comes quickly to a close, I've been spending some time thinking about my first year of road cycling...what I've accomplished and where I will go with my riding in 2007. When I started in May, my goals were small...a 50 mile organized ride in September, a metric century (65 miles) in March of 2007 and then finally...I would train all year for a century in September 2007. All of that flew out the window when I met a new friend (lovingly referred to as "the instigator") who encouraged me to aim higher and had me signed up for a century ride within a week of having my bike. I was able to complete the 102 mile Cool Breeze in August 2006, before having to take a two month break from the bike. Upon my return, I did the challenging OCW Fall Metric, which was my most difficult ride to date. Shorter than Cool Breeze, it was the climbing that had me pushing my limits and nearly giving up. Pride and a stubborn streak kept me climbing and I was able to complete the ride.

My original goals reached a full year early, I needed to decide what my goals would be for 2007. Riding centuries didn't seem like much of a goal for me, since I was able to do that within my first three months on the bike. So, what's the next logical step if you've completed a century? A double century, of course. Or to be more precise...three double centuries in a year, which will earn me the honor of wearing a California Triple Crown jersey, or as I like to refer to it...the essence of badassness. Logical might not be the right word to describe my desire to do double centuries, in fact, I am safe in saying that you need to be slightly insane to want to ride 200 miles in one day, but what the hell...I'm going for it.

I have decided to choose some of the easier rides...easier being relative because really...200 miles is 200 miles and there's not going to be anything easy about that...but in regards to climbing, I am choosing to ride some of the double centuries that have the least gain in elevation. My original plan was to start with Butterfield, which is in mid-February, but after contemplating my training schedule over the last couple of days, I have decided to give myself some extra training time and I will be riding my first one on March 31st, The Solvang Double. This will give me a full four and a half months to build up my base mileage slowly and I'm confident that I will have time to train properly for this event. I'm excited and nervous all at once, but having challenging goals this year is going to motivate me into improving as a cyclist.

Sunday night musings...

Glitter sucks. There's really not much to say about it, I mean...it can yield some fancy art projects, but I'm now dealing with a shitload of it in my kitchen and smaller, yet still significant amounts of it trailing into the living room and up the stairs. It's on my face, on my clothes, in the cat food, it's even in the fish bowl. Ehhh...at least it's red and green, so when I can't clean all of it up, I can pass it off as Christmas cheer...or something like that.

I think I've secured myself a spot in the crappy mom corner. I stole Marcel's Christmas present. Really...does a four year old need an iPod Shuffle anyway? I couldn't help myself...after riding alone for 72 miles yesterday, I decided that if I'm off of the road and on the river trail, that I can ride with music and that Shuffle is the perfect size. Guess I need to buy another one...or not. ;)

So...what am I going to put on the pilfered iPod? All of the music I just downloaded on my downloading spree, of course. Regina Spektor, Beth Orton, Rachael Yamagata, KT Tunstall, Joshua Radin and the one Schuyler Fisk song I could find...Paperweight. It's really too bad that she doesn't have an album out yet. For now I'll have to get my fill of her songs from her website and her myspace page.