Wednesday, December 12, 2007

El Tour de Tucson





Wow, have I ever been slacking off on keeping this blog updated!  Well - here it is - a full update on what I've been up to since the Grizzly Century.  

Last time I posted, I was worried that I was actually losing fitness.  Well, it got worse - much worse.  I started suffering from a nasty sinus infection - one that just wouldn't go away.  Needless to say, this got in the way of my training.  Then, my son's soccer coach asked for some help since he would be out of the country for a couple of weeks - that killed several team rides, and complicated riding during the week.  
As a result, I went into the Tucson ride hardly having ridden in more than a month.  Not good.


However, some great teammates and coaching helped pull me through.  Based on my early season fitness, I was riding with our fast group - yikes!  I had started the season hoping to pull off a sub-6 hour century.  With a better final month of the season, I probably could have pulled it off - during the event I was on my bike for 6 hours 15 minutes and finished in 7 hours 45 minutes.  This included a bunch of stops to work a persistent (and very painful) cramp out of one of my calves.  The cramp basically hit at about mile 25 (at which point I let the fast group pace line pedal off into the distance) and didn't really ease up until about mile 80.  As near as I can tell, the cramp was caused by a combo of dehydration and poor conditioning.  So I was actually pretty happy with these results, all things considered.  I may do this ride (nice and flat - good for really fast times) again next year to see if I can crack that 6 hour time barrier.

My teammates did even better.  2 broke 6 hours easily, and  2 others  just missed the 6 hour mark (including one rider who was new to the sport!).  This was despite the sea lion stuffed animals that someone thought would be cute on all of our helmets.
  
Everyone finished, except for one teammate who had her crank fall off just after mile 100 (Tucson is a 109 mile ride).  What a horrible feeling to put in all that work and effort, and to be that close to the finish line and have that happen!  Marci was a trooper, though, and kept smiling through it all.

As a team we raised more than $75,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Combined with the Death Ride team, that makes almost $250,000 raised by the teams I was involved with this year, with almost $8,000 of that raised by me.  Pretty good!

Here's a link to a u-tube video of the Tucson event put together by the son of one of my teammates: Tucson Video

Since then, I've been trying to keep riding, but life keeps getting in the way.  I'm still fighting that sinus infection, and I've moved, which took a lot of time and energy.  Plus, Sheryl Garrett, founder of The Garrett Planning Network, Inc. (yes, I'm a member) and author of several books, including the just-released "Personal Finance Workbook for Dummies", was in town promoting the new book just after Thanksgiving.  We put on a comedy night/fund-raiser for The Leukemia Society, and had a great time while raising some money.

Despite everything, I have been getting some riding in, including a revisit to Morgan Territory with a large group - organized through BikeForums.net.  Lots of fun - I already knew about half the people, and met the rest for the first time during the ride.
The weather's been cold, but there's been surprisingly little rain for this time of the year (not good, actually - one more dry winter and we'll probably have another drought around here).   I can keep riding as long as I carry lights (it's not really light until almost 7 am, and is dark before 6 pm right now).  Either that or just blow off work entirely....

A special thanks to all the donors who sponsored me this year in the two Team in Training rides.  Plus a very special thanks to Valerie and Michael, and to Anne and Kris, who watched my children during many of the training rides this year.  I wouldn't have been able to do it without your help!

JB