Shut up, Legs!

We are into Week 3 of our Century Training and we have two of our longer Saturday rides behind us.  To the more seasoned cyclists 30 and 36 mile long rides are not long at all, but to me, my longest ride being just under 60 miles and that was a year ago, the work that goes into these longer rides are killer.  Our first ride was way worse because, being from Michigan, riding in 90 degree sun for 3 hours on hills my legs were not conditioned for, was a b*^&#.  Compounded by the fact that we were on roads I was not familiar with, riding with Adam, who is so much more in shape than I am (jerk) and that we ran out of water 10 miles from home made me into a whiny and very tired person who could not sustain what we wanted to be a pace of 17-20 mph.

I was miserable and it is so unbelievably frustrating to know you are gutting yourself trying to keep up with someone and they are still pulling away from you! I wanted to kill him, but I didn't have the strength.  So we spent a significant amount of time going much slower (12-14 mph, and 7-9 mph on some of those g*& d@!#$ hills).

But there was hope!

There was an MS fundraising century ride that was going on whilst we were pounding out our pitiful 30 miles and the organizers were kind enough to let us refill our water bottles so we wouldn't keel over on our way home.  If I hadn't been so sweaty and gross I would have hugged her.  Thank you so very much!

Side note: it probably would have helped if I wasn't wearing my pink and black Fat Cyclist jersey.  Black material and sun are bad choices.  But I was stylin'.

Anyway, we managed to drag my sorry carcass home and continue on with our lives and training for another week.

This past weekend we had our 36 mile ride planned for Saturday, but we weren't going to be in Lansing, we were going to be in Petoskey to go camping with the best people in the world and we weren't comfortable trying to come up with a 36 mile trek in a place neither of us were familiar with.  We felt it would be a poor life decision.  So, we did our ride on Friday riding from my in-laws house in Big Rapids to my parents' house in Reed City to Hersey and back to Big Rapids.  This one was much better.  I was about to sustain our pace much better, in part because a) it wasn't a billion degrees, b) it was cloudy, c) it was mostly flat and d) I am very familiar with the trails we were riding on.

But then! (dun dun dun!)

I rode over something bad on our way back and got a flat. Frick!  But fortunately my handy-dandy patch kit was able to save the day and we didn't have to change the whole tube!  I had never been so glad I had a patch kit in my whole life.  It was annoying to have to stop for a half hour to fix it, but all in all this ride was much more successful than the previous week's.  I only had to tell my legs to shut up 4 times instead of 20!  So glad I had Jens Voigt humor to pull me through.

Even though we have 6 more weeks before we ride our century for the Michigan Pink Tour, I am finally, for the first time, feeling like a century is something I am capable of.  During the first two weeks of training I was rather, shall we say, unsure of my ability to condition myself to do this ride.  But today, after 2 unplanned rest days because of camping and my exhaustion from Friday's ride, we went out for an at pace ride for 14 miles.  And it felt easy! 17 mph? Puh, nothing!  I felt great! I even felt great riding at 17 mph after going up a steep hill at 20 mph from base to summit.  I know that sounds like nothing, I did it.  And I am so freaking proud. I can't believe after 2 weeks of training how much my body has changed and I am really looking forward to where I will be in 6 weeks.

So if you're in Michigan and feel like riding for Breast Cancer Research, I'll be there, with my husband and wearing my 'Fight Like Susan' Fat Cyclist kit.

Come ride with us!

1700 Points....

.....and I made a rice bag!  Well, two actually. We have an MSU themed one that I think Adam's Mom got for him, but it's a tube and not really useful for backs or other wide areas (like my ass) so I had been meaning to go to Joann Fabrics and get some fabric for a wider one.

Then Saturday after a five hour rehearsal Friday night, I awoke to muscle soreness in my back (new!) and a pulled hamstring (which I knew about 10 minutes into the rehearsal).  Then my procrastination at getting material became a serious lack in judgement.  As I'm laying there, I think WAIT!  I have a ton of left over material from my previous projects! Why get new material when I have some I can use already?!?  So I stumble my way out of bed and picked out a purple handkerchief print I used to make my shoulder bag (and my lunch bag) that I had purchased the rest of the bolt because it was half off (and I loved it!)  I cut out a big section and started sewing.

We didn't have any rice.  And I had to go to rehearsal with Jenny.

Sigh.  My heated relief had to wait.  There was an upside though - the driver's seat in the car is heated!  So that held me over.

I rehearsed with Jenny and I went to the store to get rice.

Lee had a pillow she wanted me to fix, so after I did that, we sat and chatted whilst I finished my first rice bag!  I haven't seen her in weeks, so I was really glad we could hang out for a little while.  She's graduating in a few weeks and moving out of state so we have to get our happy visits in while we can - flights are expensive, even within the U.S.

Anyway, I only made one with Lee there and I made the second one much faster after we watched The Kids Are Alright (I'll write about the movie later).  I was planning on doing a tutorial for those who wanted to make their own when I made the second one, but I forgot.  Ooops, sorry!  So I will make more and remember to make a tutorial the next time!  I have all kinds of material and rice is cheap :-)

And now you're probably wondering what does 1700 points have to do with rice bags?  Well, nothing.  But, I use MyView Survey to earn points towards rewards and I am 1700 points away from a $25 Gift Card from Amazon which I am ridiculously excited about!  Then I get can some of the things on my Amazon Wish List!  I have too many things I want, and sometimes I hate that about me.  But I also really want to expand my sheet music library, book collection and I need heavier weights and a heart rate monitor for when I'm doing P90X.  But the fact that I have four lists separated into "categories"kind of irks me.  Ugh.

Anyway, I only need to do 1 1/2 more full surveys to get the gift card and I can't wait!  Woo!!

**EDIT** I now only need 850 points :D