My Blog

July 3rd fireworks in ahwatukee

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 13:12:17 -0700

Kim and Jim hosted a gathering at their house Fri night and then we all rode our bikes on down 48th St to catch the community show. Good times!! Find more pics over on my photo Album page...

Thursday night rides are fun

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Brian and Zort joined me for a ThNR to the helipad and back to the pool. yaaaaaaa.......

Barn Burner Flag weekend

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:05:06 -0700

A few weeks ago I ran into Jim Wilcox while on Marty’s Helipad TT Desert Classic ride. Everyone was talking about the upcoming Barn Burner race and Jim asked if I’d like to be on a team with him and Kimmie and a buddy named Yod. Took me about a day to decide.... why not? It’ll be “just for fun” and our team name was “Here4Beer”. Work struck with a vengeance the week before and by Thurs night I was so beat that I could not imagine loading my camping gear, buying food, and hitting the road to Flag. But a good night’s sleep and finishing the project by 3PM had me home with plenty of time to pack on Friday. Wheeee! By a little after 6 PM, I was following Jim and Kim up the road to Flag. We picked up vagabond Michelle (M1) at the grocery store in Flag and headed to camp. All was silent so we set up camp, put the chairs under the popup and hit the sack.

Around 2am I started hearing rain... ahhhh. the dust will be settled! But by 5AM it was pouring. Oooo... mud. Kimmie woke me around 5:30 or 6 and we headed over to the Barn for the pre-race meeting. Still raining, but it was letting up. Mud. Wet dogs. Overloaded tampon (why does Mother Nature always strike when I’m in Flag?). Thank goodness Yod was going first! He was game and took off.... His time was just over 2 hrs.

Kim was next and logged an impressive 2:44ish for hardly being on the bike at all in the weeks prior. Hats off to that chick. Girl, I wanna see you out on the trails more often!! Jim was 3rd and I was surprised when he ran over 2 hours. Turns out he bit it on the last DH and crunched some ribs. He still rode back and handed off the bandana to me.

I was off. Ouch! Hitting the trail at speed at 8000’ was a chore after sitting around, standing around, and chatting it up with people all day long. GASP! Took me a good half hour to find my lungs and stride. Then wheeeee! The first half of the course was FAST. I’d glance down and see 27 MPH. 30 MPH. Then the hills started and my speed was lost. I cranked up the first one mostly in the middle chain ring and then loved passing XC dudes on the rocky DH. The 2nd and longest climb had me gasping in the granny gear. 8 MPH... 4 MPH... it’s all ok, we’re just in it for fun but darn it, I really wanted to break 2:30. Michelle gave me inspiration as she flew past me in her middle chain ring. I can do it!! And I did. I ended up with a time of 2:24 and passed the finish line for my team (#414) at 4:14 PM. We got our buckle and it turns out we were in 5th place in our field of coed posse.

Hit up Elden for a little ride on Sunday and then back to Pheeenix...

Do i have brittle bones?

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 11:44:17 -0700

2.5 weeks ago I took the Lunch Lady out for it’s first ride. It was super sweet!!! Of course, I also took a nice tumble that was captured by our videographer Sam. I did a nice backside roll but ended up hugging a big rock. One week later at Flag my ribs were hurting. Two weeks later I had a boobie MRI (just a followup from my benign lump removal last Sept) on Saturday morning. After the 50 minutes scan I got up from the prone position on my stomach where my arms were over my head and my boobies were unsuccessfully attempting to fill some massive cups, and OUCH! The pain in my left side was excruciating. I waited about 1/2 hour for the pain to subside trying to decide whether or not to phone Mom and Dad to get them to come and rescue me. The pain did not subside so instead I just marched on over to the ER (I was at Gilbert Mercy for the MRI) and said “help”. I told them about the fall 2 weeks prior and Doc was worried about my internals so I had x-rays and a CT scan. 5+ hours later I found that it was just broken a rib (whew) - nothing too impressive, just a little chip. I’m guessing that the chip moved on me during the MRI causing all the pain. Good news is that now a week+ later I’m in little to no pain. Do I ride this weekend? I’m thinking I should take it easy some more and at least not do any thrashing around. Probably would be wise not to fall on it again for a few more weeks. But NRA is calling.... what to do?

Memorial day in Flagstaff

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:39:13 -0700

What a fantastic weekend. Sure it rained but with loads of friends, food, kids, dogs, and a 6-easyup compound we all made it a weekend to remember. Click on over “My Albums” to find loads of pics from the weekend, but here are a few of my favorites.

The Lunchbox

Sat, 16 May 2009 20:58:42 -0700

With the last 2 weeks I have received almost all the parts for my new bike. It’s a 6” 29er Lenzsport Lunchbox. Today was build day.

The flu

Sat, 2 May 2009 08:50:31 -0700

Sunday 4/26: I had aching joints and muscles, a very sore throat, no sniffles but lots of phlem in my chest and a big cough

Monday: more aching, sore throat, raspy cough

Tuesday: same as Monday in AM but by mid-day I had a bright red rash by my eyes and down my cheeks and by night I felt horrid and had a fever of 99ish (I'm usually a chilly sub-97). Took Benedryl for the rash.

Wed: Felt like death warmed over so I called in sick to work. Benedryl pretty much knocked me out all day but by the evening I was all skert because my symptoms were identical to those given on the news for the Swine Flu - aching all over, respiratory distress, fever of near 101. I shared this with my family and Dad came hustling on over from Mesa on a mission to get me medical attention. We arrived at Chandler ER @ 8PM where I was eventually given 2 liters of IV saline and some meds and was home by 2AM. Yawwwwwn. Thankfully Chandler has some really comfy lounge chairs for patients in the waiting room!

Yea, I felt like a boob the next day for using up ER time, but it turns out I am one of only 52 others in AZ that have had their swab tests sent off to the CDC. oh yea, I feel special now! If I get a call today (Saturday) then there may be reports of a middle aged woman in Ahwatukee with the swine flu. If no call, then results were negative and I just had a nasty case of another random flu. No one at work is sick, Robin is fine (I was visiting her this weekend)... I have no clue where I picked up my bug.

Good news is that I'm feeling much better now!!!!! I am still sniffling and coughing and tired but the fever and aching are long gone and I'm back to just feeling fat and flabby from two weeks with no exercise.

OOPS!

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:53:21 -0700

My iMac crashed right before the MTBR AZ Spring Fling - turns out it was the hard drive and guess what - I had no backup. Doh! Although this site gets uploaded to the web, it is created by iWeb on my iMac and requires the old files to be in existence on my iMac each time it is updated. I’ve done my best to re-create some of the albums and movies, but the blog entries are starting fresh.

Lesson learned by me - have backup in place. Do not wait for “tomorrow” to put these systems in place.