The universe tends towards equilibrium....

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This past weekend, the weather looked like it would provide a much more enjoyable ride, so I headed out on Sunday to get in my weekly ride.

It was still a bit chilly out, but what was also very obvious was the wind.  The whole first half of the ride, I was biking straight into the wind.  At one point, I passed a flag, and it was literally blowing directly parallel to my path of travel.  But it wasn't worse than the wind from the MS150 last year; I was able to maintain 10-13 miles an hour.

Once I turned onto 646 to start heading back to the house, the wind was now at my back.  And it was exhilarating!  I couldn't even really keep my legs "working hard" during the whole ride down 646, even though I was in my top gears and going 20-22 miles an hour.  It definitely evened out the work I had to do on the first half of the ride!  I made it back to the house in record time. =)

I did definitely feel the ride later in the day; I knew I had to get back spinning class this week!

First organized ride of 2013!

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My first organized ride of the year!  I got up early in the morning on the 16th to head up north to Humble (pronounced "uhm-bull", not "hum-bull" ;) ) for their annual Lions Club bike ride, benefitting handicapped and diabetic children.  This is one of the first rides I participated in back in 2010, so it was fun to head back up this year.

At the starting line!

However, it turned out not to be as "fun" as I had hoped.  The weather was quite cold; started out in the low 40s.  And, I had forgotten my nice warm biking gloves that Vicki had given me a couple years back! (of which she said "like you ever need gloves this warm in HOUSTON...")  Other aspects made it a "terrible" ride as well; first, my iHome for my bike was evidently running out of batteries, so I could barely make out the songs that were being played (and they were definitely out of tune and full of static).  AND, as I had charged my iPod the night prior, I had forgotten to set it back up to only play music from my "Random Music" playlist; meaning it was playing music from EVERYTHING I had on my iPod. Which includes some classical music, some meditations, other instrumental music...none of which is helpful when trying to get pumped up and ride a bike!

So the first half of the ride was pretty miserable.  I was cold, I didn't have music to keep me occupied, and the sunlight was bothering my eyes as well.  I was finding it difficult to focus and differentiate the various obstacles or debris on the gruond, and determine if they were a threat to me.  Again, I think that's part of my fears arising from falling off the bike in October, but it still contributed to the "when is this 11 miles going to END..."

I got to the rest stop at the halfway point and did my best to fix this issues plaguing my ride.  I changed out the batteries on my iHome, and thankfully that seemed to fix the sound issue.  And I went into my iPod to select the correct Playlist, giving me the right songs to sing along to and have a good beat.  I got myself a couple snacks, filled up my water, and then with a big sigh got back on the bike and headed back to the start.

The ride back was a more manageable, but it was still cold and I was still struggling with seeing some things.  Another frustrating aspect on the way back is that a few of the cops weren't actually stopping traffic as I came up to intersections; so I'd have to slow down, unclip, and wait at a 4-way stop to take my turn to go.  That is generally one of the benefits of the organized rides; the ability to just keep going and not have to worry about stopping at every intersection.  So that was just one more thing that made it so I could not WAIT for this ride to be over.

Finally, after what seemed like FOREVER, I made it back to the start and pulled in.  One redeeming factor of the ride was a tasty spaghetti lunch; it was nice and warm, and just tasted SO good after the miserable ride.  After filling my belly, I packed up the bike and headed home; I had to hurry, cause I had to get to piano class at 1!

Thus ended my first organized ride of 2013; but it's only the beginning!

Lone rider...

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This year, I'll be training on my own.  I spent some time in 2010 training with my friend John, who was training for a triathlon, and in 2011 I trained with another friend, Eryx.  As it's shaping up this year, I'll likely be training alone again.  But, my sister has decide she's able to come down and ride with me again for the actual ride, so at least I won't be lonely for that! =)

Because of the tailbone injury, I have not been exercising much at all, even Yoga.  So for my "first" training ride, I decided to take it a little slow and stick to just a 15 mile ride, to ease back into it.  Plus, James and I had a couple of errands to run prior to him leaving for a short time for work (so I didn't want to stay out too long).

I found I was definitely a little more nervous than I have been in the past, even though I've ridden this route many, many times.  There is a hill just past Hwy 3, on 96, that I used to be able to get quite the speed up when coming down.  Now, I'm much more cautious; definitely some PTSD from the fall in October.  But I made it through the ride without any major incidents, so I call that a win! =)

Back in the saddle!

Hello everyone! I can't believe i didn't use this blog during the 2011 or 2012 MS150 season! It's actually fun for me to blog about my rides, and keeps me motivated. So I'm definitely going to start it back up for this year!

In October 2012, I participated in an organized ride benefitting Habitat for Humanity. It was a beautiful day for a ride, and my friend Jes and I were just going to have a fun time. Unfortunately, about 5 miles into the ride, I fell off my bike and landed, hard, on the curb of a median. After a 4 hour doctor visit, I learned I had broken my tailbone, and it would take 6+ weeks to recover.

Impact (crush) on my tailbone

I was definitely in pain the first week, and could not even sit up for more than about 2 hours that first week without being in pain. In those first couple weeks, I wasn't sure if I would be able to bike the MS150 this year, because I was afraid of not being healed enough to train properly starting in January. But the human body is an amazing thing, and by the time I went back to work after Christmas break, I was able to sit without aid of a pillow. I decided it was time to get back on a bike and see how it went

I started off just going to the gym and getting on the stationary bike; I didn't want to get on my bike and ride out a couple miles, only to find I was in so much pain I couldn't make it back. But the 30+ minutes on the stationary bike didn't cause any pain, so that gave me the confidence to try on my actual bike as well

On January 20th, I arranged with Jes to go on a short ~10 mile ride to try things out. Rather than driving over to meet with her, I decided to bike to her house, figuring that way I could find out if biking was going to be OK while still having a way to get home if it wasn't. Everything went just fine! Other than the fact that Jes' bike pump wasn't the right type, and so she couldn't actually join me for the ride. =( But in the trip to her house and back home, I knew that I was going to be able to train for the 150

So I finally registered for the MS150, and have been working on training since! I'll post my various training rides individually, and I'll TRY to keep it more up to date than just a big burst of posts. ;) Wish me luck this year!