the longest 6.5 miles

I had not been on the bike in a while, weather was awful, but I had a free morning & wanted to put some fun between my legs (2 wheel fun). Having completed boot camp in a parking garage on Saturday, I decided to ride the garage.
Told Llama I was going to ride my bike and in a frantic voice she says "Kim it is RAINING!" Love how mom's can't stop being mom's!

Intentions were to do 10-15 miles...well....

After 3 laps I was bored and barely at 1.25 miles (you can get lost in a parking garage). Since the scenery kept repeating itself and was quite grey, I decided it was time for some math.

Typical scenery, I thought I was going to hit my head!

approx 1/2 a mile round trip
took about 3 mins 30 secs to do a loop
I completed about 13 laps
6.5 miles in 41 mins
Need to find a longer parking garage! the corners slowed me down

************************************
Miles for this ride: 6.5
Miles for the week: about 6.5
Total miles for the month: for December--6.5
Total miles for 2011: ??? lost track
Miles to go: ??? to hit 1500 ??? to 2011
Odometer: ???/

1900 and a marathon

I hit 1900 miles on 11/13/2011 during the 22 mile Rock n Roll Marathon inagural bike tour in San Antonio. I'm sure at the exacty 1900 miles I probably blew a snot rocket. Yes, I was sick and riding my bike, and we woke up at 4:30 to get to the starting line by 5:30 AM, but it was a more important day other than hitting 1900 miles on my bike and being the day before stroke day.


The day is important because Yungie will be completing his first marathon, a year after he ran his first 1/2 marathon!

When we finished the bikeride, Yung had only been running for 30 mins, so we ate, filled our water bottles & took off to find him at mile 10.



As we waited and cheered other runners on Yungie passed us by...we had to go find him, we rode on the course dodging runners to get to mile 13.
We found him!



Then we lost him again before mile 14, so we waited at mile 20 for him to come out of the loop. MB ran to Sonic for food and we saw Christie! Then about 1.5 hours later he appeared, beat and probably annoyed we were standing at the top of the hill cheering, so he ran up the hill.





From there on we leap frogged Yungie & about 10 other runners trying to make it to the finish. Each time we would stop, get off the bikes, pull out the cowbells and start cheering for 'red shirt guy', 'black shirt & red hat guy', 'polo shirt guy' and Elizabeth.


At one point we pulled over and bought a bunch of gatorade since the water stop had run out (I don't think they were planning on the temps hitting 86!) The runners were thankful.

Then the incident w/ Hector occurred. Hector had a friend riding next to him, but Hector decided he needed a break, thus he went and layed down in the shade. MB goes to check on things & once she realizes he is ok she asks, "did you train for this?" "Yes," Hector replies. "Well you better get up & finish because you don't want to have to do it again!" He agrees and gets up to start running again. But before he can pass the cheerleaders, MB has informed them that Hector needs a little encouragement, so as he's running by they are cheering "Let's go Hector!" We were glad to find out he finished, took him 7 + hours but he finished.

Finally we could see the legs of the dead armadillo (the Alamodome looks like a dead armadillo laying on its back w its legs up in the air...they do this when they die)



Yungie finished in 6:30, not the time he wanted, but he finished! It was a tough run. We hope he appreciated his Mobile Cheering Team, because we had fun cheering him and the surrounding others on and we are very proud of him!



Not only was it Yung's first marathon, it was MB's first long bike ride! Hope she joins ABCx in training next summer!
************************************
Miles for this ride: 36
Miles for the week: about 52
Total miles for the month: for November-- 116
Total miles for 2011: 1922 not including mtn bike rides
Miles to go: -422 to hit 1500 89 to 2011
Odometer: 11732

Tour de Gruene

One of my goals for 2011 was to ride the tour de Gruene since Phu told me it was her first ride & the reason she bought a bike.
At first KPT & I were going to do the 63 mile route, until we realized there wouldn't be much training before the ride, so we decided to just ride 45, I think that made Jorge very happy!

Morning of the ride, running late..ugh...temp 37, more ugh, very crowded (ugh) didn't realize this ride was going to be so popular.
Actually met up w/ all the ABCx crowd & ran into Jorge & Becky at registration, then Jorge passed me up at mile 7, I caught back up with him & we rode together to the next rest stop.
The ride was hillier than I thought, but I'd have to say I kicked it's butt, esp the last few hills! passed up several people and kept going, never having to get into the granny of all granny gears! whoo hoo!

Next time, though, I must go w KPT & make a day out of it!






************************************
Miles for this ride: 48.95
Miles for the week: about 64
Total miles for the month: for November-- 64
Total miles for 2011: 1867 not including mtn bike rides
Miles to go: -377 to hit 1500 133 to 2011
Odometer: 11677

1800

Well, I surpassed my goal of 1500 miles and hit a new milestone again. I hit 1800 miles on Sunday!!!!

For the week I completed 2 full trips to work, or 4 one ways either from work to home or from home to work.

Then on Sunday since I was only 10 miles from 1800, I decided to go watch MB play kickball in E. Austin. Fun ride to E 12, I always like trying to figure out the route I'm going to take, think it keeps the mind sharp. Beautiful day for riding a bike.

************************************
Miles for this ride: 11.95
Miles for the week: about 50ish
Total miles for the month: for October-- over 200...
Total miles for 2011: 1802 not including mtn bike rides
Miles to go: -300 to hit 1500 209 to 2011
Odometer: 11612

Pedal Stroke

Back in September a fellow cyclist from the France trip sent me this link:
Interview w Karin Linner

of course while I'm reading it, I'm thinking, "darn it why didn't I know about this sooner!"

So I started following links to see how it was going and I ended up on the Pedal Stroke FB page and saw this post "Hi All and Thank you for your support! You must be wondering why I'm not on the road yet? Well.. we needed some more time to get funding, sponsors and plan my trip on the bike from Boulder to NYC better. So now I'm set to ride in May 2012. Yeah!!
Keep following me here in the meantime - continuing useful information and shenanigans guaranteed! =)" I can ride with her!!!! oh boy so many questions! How many miles a day? How fast? What can I help you with?

So, I liked her page on FB and sent her an email. and it looks like I will be riding w Karin at least part of the way! So wish I could go the entire distance but to go across one state or the width of Texas will be awesome, all while spreading stroke awareness!
Turns out Karin plans to ride about 50 miles a day, I can do that, now I'm just waiting to see the route to figure out where & when I will join her. And to keep riding my bike, esp in the cold, cuz May in the midwest isn't May in Texas!

Finally back on the bike... after a week off

I took a week off after the Mamma Jamma, and then the day I was supposed to ride, it rained 2" for the first time in months in Austin!
So that Monday I rode after work, worked on drills, then I did a BTH & BTW turn around on Weds/Thur or Tues/Weds followed by a full BTW day on the mountain bike. Of course the full day I only had to bike to Zilker, but carrying a drill, an extra battery & the charger made it interesting. And riding the mtn bike at 8 in the morning was so much diff than riding the road bike.

Since it was such a beautiful day, I decided to take the long way home and go home via the Shoal Creek Trail, besides it's always good to change up your routes.




On Saturday I road w/ ABCx, it was good to get together w everyone, we did 21 out & back on Parmer.

Then Sunday was a 13 mile ride w MB. First country road ride together, she did great and I'm looking forward to more rides w/ her!

************************************
Miles for this ride: 14.7 mtn bike to work, 20.5 ABCx, 13.01 MB
Miles for the week: 58
Total miles for the month: 154 (this one is hard to keep up with)
Total miles for 2011: 1696 not including mtn bike rides
Miles to go: -196 to hit 1500 304 to 2011
Odometer: 11505

Mamma Jamma "Century"

Well, the day finally arrived. After riding for 3+ months w/ all the Austin Bike Chix, this was finally their day to ride the Mamma Jamma. I think I was so excited for them that once again, I didn't sleep well. Wasn't too worried since I slept great on Weds & Thurs, but I knew I would be out of it.

We arrived at Reunion Ranch later than I wanted to, oh well, everyone from ABCx was pitching in to get everything set up, I wasn't worried.

The jersey's looked great! We could easily spot each other from across the field.

So cool so many ABCxers arrived early to send us off!


7:30, Great send off!


For some reason we stopped at the mile 11 pit stop...gotta do it when nature calls! KPT dropped her sunglasses into the port-a-pot, could have been so much worse--she was the only one to have used it! That was good for a few laughs!

We made it to mile 20 and ran into the Llama who was there to cheer us on & take pics! Thank you Llama!

We started playing the alphabet game around mile 4...just past Andice with the Babptist church...A...B...C...

In the 20's we started to split up as a group, Crystal powered on ahead. We lollygagged at the next rest stop again...only to find out we had 30 mins to go 10 miles to get to the century gate. Time to put it in the big ring! Dropped my back water bottle at mile 38 (said Alison), oh well, I didn't pay for it (thx Luna) but it was a favorite and I feel more bad that I littered. I think I also littered a couple of Luna bars...not a good day for Luna. Well, we finally arrived at 11:08 at the gate and some lady wearing a mask insisted we were too late, so we went on and both of us had already decided we were going to make up the miles, but how?

I think by now we are on letter k...

At mile 50 we turned around to double up on the miles. we added 10 miles on this one, thinking back, we should have gone to the rest stop on the 100 loop, but we were running low on fluids, so 6 miles to the mile 51 pit stop was necessary. Pit stop at mile 61 (51) on letter Q.

At mile 66 we turned right instead of left, and added on some more miles. Still on the letter q for most of the leg until we saw a mail truck w/ 'frequent' on it next to a cowboy on a quarter horse, since we were cheating the route, one cheat in the alphabet game was ok.

At the last pit stop we ran into Crystal. Amazingly we were on the same mileage! After the motherly SAG wanted to haul us in (course closes at 3:30--all other info said 4) we decided to leave.

Now we were still looking for U, I finally could read an underground cable sign. We pass up 4 riders during the last 11 miles! Yes, not last! on one of the last corners all the SAG drivers were cheering for us! Nice welcome, but nothing compared to the welcome received at the finish! VERY COOL! Especially the wall of yellow & green from ABCx! Kristen's face shows how wonderful it was (mine was tired and trying not to run into people in front of me, but I was beaming inside!

Once finished we were at 95.82...time for a lesson in rounding and priorities, go ride 4.18 more miles to get to 100 or drink the cold beer that was handed to me?
(I chose beer!)

THESE LADIES ROCK! 859 MILES and raised over $8,500!!!

And if you are wondering, once we exited 45th and we were still looking for X, found it, so we had to circle back to mopac and exit for Y, then drive to Gullett Elem to get Z!


************************************
Miles for this ride: 95.82 a MJ 'Century'
Miles for the week: 107
Total miles for the month: 95.82 (this one is hard to keep up with)
Total miles for 2011: 1634
Miles to go: -134 to hit 1500 377 to 2011
Odometer: 11444