Good deed

I decided sort of last minute to try to get a ride in before it rained. I grabbed some bike shorts and one of Tom's jerseys that were hanging up to dry and rushed to pick Christopher up from summer camp. We get to the paved trail start up a hill and Christopher says "Mommy, it's raining." Crap. I put the rain cover down and continue. It starts raining harder. Crap. So, at the top of the hill (where there is a "T" intersection), I turn us around and start back. It eases up so I decided to aim for an hour ride and go to the lake, do a little more meandering and start on the spur back to my house. I pass a guy stopped and then my mind starts wandering. I hear the "on your left" and apologize as I had been taking up most of the trail. I then get to see him crash magnificiently. The trail curves after crossing the street I was going to hop off the trail at and he took it too fast for the wet conditions. I cross the street and stay on the trail to see if he's okay, ask if he wants me to call for an ambulance as I see blood on his arm and think of Tom's crash a couple of weeks before. He says he's fine.

I notice Christopher is passed out and I have just over an hour so I decide to cruise around a little. I get to the next street and turn back -- the guy is still sitting on the ground. Hmm. I ride down a side street 'til the next busy street and turn around and come back. The guy is up but walking his bike. Turns out he got a flat. I have everything but the pump which he has. He's impressed as I start changing the tire. Then, of course, I can't get the tire back on. He gets the last bit on. Then, as usual, I have problems getting the pump off without half of the air coming back out.

Eventually, I get him on his way telling him to avoid to big bumps and I actually got 1 hour, 30 minutes in. Yea! Now, it's raining again and I'm doubting ever being able to ride my mountain bike again.

Successes

On Saturday morning, I decided to gamble and try to go up for the 12 Hours at John Muir. It looked like it might rain but it looked like there was a better chance it would rain at my house. It rained quite a bit as I was driving up there. By the time I got there, I was tired from the 12+ hour work day on Friday and not in a competitive mood. I told myself to go out and ride a couple of laps and that, if it wasn't fun, I'd go home and see my little guy and my injured guy. The trails were muddy and I just kept thinking that, if I crashed, who was going to change Christopher's diapers.

I rode with a girl a good part of the lap that was competing as part of a 12-hour team. I did one lap, stopped to fix my speed sensor and really had to convince myself to go back out. Most of lap 2 I had a guy behind me who wanted to chat -- and wanted me to find him a girlfriend. It was still muddy, I still wasn't having fun and the guy would come up beside me as I was trying to pick the best muddy, rocky line for uphills/downhills causing me to put a foot down and hoof it up the last part of the hill in one instance and get a handlebar in the quad during a downhill part. As I finished the lap, it started raining again. Decision made. It totally did not help that I was planning on ditching out early on the Friday event I had to work ,which my co-worker knew -- she then bought tickets to see some play and ditched the event completely meaning I didn't get home 'til late and didn't get to see Christopher before he went to sleep.

I went home after bailing from Saturday's race, helped Tom with Christopher, cuddled with Christopher, spent more than 1.5 hours mowing the jungle of our front yard with a reel mower. I was absolutely shocked, amused and somewhat embarrassed to see I actually took first in the 12-hour race. I believe the other girl was a young girl who took a spill during her first lap.

For the 12 Hours at Crystal Ridge, I plan on not working the night before, tucking my son in the night before and coming with my game face.

Tom's still on the mend. The pain is not as bad but he's getting back spasms from the arm sling. Two weeks down. Hopefully only four to go. It's been a very, very long two weeks for both him and me.

LCI 51207272

I have my official LCI number after taking a really, really, really long three-day class to be a League of American Bicyclists Certified Instructor. I'm co-teaching my first class on July 1 down in the Champaign area.

Other than that, my life has been even more insanely hectic than before. As I'm sure most of my few readers know, Tom broke his clavicle (I think that's how you spell it) at the Wonder Lake Super Crit. It's now been one week and one day. It's hell for him. He's in pain and in an arm sling for probably a little more than six weeks. I've been trying to help Tom out and also doing everything with regards to taking care of Christopher, the house, etc. (Both our back and front yard are only partially cut at the moment.) I've been going out of my mind. I did do the crits in Winfield this weekend and volunteered. It was nice for me to get out of the house but horrible for Tom to have to deal with Christopher for most of the weekend. I was kind of sad to not get to race 9 Mile but my plan of sticking to races closer to home has seemed to be working well for the most part -- with the exception of Tom crashing during a crit.

1st to DFL in 24 hours

I decided to do ABD's crits this weekend. I'm dying to be on my mountainbike but the races were close to home and I could race for free. Saturday went well. I hung with the pack of women (30+, 40+ and one 50+ woman) and finished 2nd in my age group and I think 8th overall in the about dozen racers. Sunday we were with two men's age groups. I couldn't hang with the faster pack but noticed no other 30+ girls were up there either. I rode with two guys most of the race, took first in my age group and got quite a few compliments about riding strong. The compliments about strong riding and the top podium spot were very rare and very nice.

Then things started to suck. We thought we had someone to watch Christopher Sunday afternoon so Tom & I could actually go on a mountainbike ride together. She said she couldn't last minute. On Monday, I had a good chance of taking the overall and getting $50. A teammate and another girl even said they were going to just ride with me the whole race to make sure I got the overall. I'm sure my few readers know where this is going. I had a horrible race. It was really windy and we had a smaller group and I can't draft for anything. I fell off our little group. My teammate had previously shot off and ended up winning the race. The other girl who was going to work with me worked with one of my competitors and, working by myself in the wind, I almost reeled 'em in but couldn't. I ended up with the same amount of overall points with another girl. Even though I had beat her the previous two days and my best placing was a first vs. her second, she got the overall. Then, I realized I lost part of my skewer for my front wheel that had been in the pit. I was told that there were no vegan sandwiches (they had a PB and J for me the day before) and I couldn't find the spare umbrella we keep in the car. Someone at least lent me a rain jacket as it rained on me for several hours being a course marshall. And, then last, I had to argue with the volunteer coordinator because she didn't want to give me one of my volunteer vouchers (which I can use for race fees). So, I was cranky. Some seemed to be annoyed I was in a bad mood. But, what a crappy day!

On a good note on Sunday evening, we briefly had the training wheels off Christopher's bike. He's "riding" the bike without pedals like a pro. We took the training wheels off his little Trek, he rode a very small distance (with me kind of holding the back of his seat), he started tilting to the side and wanted his other bike. He is sooo close! = )

[Edit: I added a photo taken on Saturday since it shows the new bike. It no longer has the white seat, which you can't really tell since my butt's on it.]

Starting to catch up with me

I've been going at a really hectic pace and this weekend it appears to have caught up with me. I did ABD's time trial on Saturday morning and then did the Vernon Hills crit on Sunday. The time trial went icky. My pace was slower than I was expecting. So, it probably was not the best idea to decide to go to a crit on the next day. The crit was really fast and I made a dumb move of starting in the front to the left which put me in the wind when I should have been trying to draft. Most of the race was basically a time-trial effort. At least, I have a rest week this week. Now, whether or not I'll actually have time to get any rest will be another story.

Home stretch

I did my last batch of phone calls this morning for LIB's Train the Trainer classes. Whew. I have another month of work for ATA (formerly CBF) which means life is still going to be insanely busy for awhile. I have not had a day off in...I have no idea. I worked a health fair Saturday morning for ATA and then covered events Sat. and Sunday afternoon for the local paper. I was sort of sad to have missed Flatlandia's race. Christopher is enthralled in SpongeBob at the moment so I thought I'd take a minute to finally update this blog.

Tom switched the handle bars on my road bike to Salsa Poco's. I love those bars. I picked up another pair (with my wonderful ATA discount) for my cross bike as well as some cool-colored grip tape for the cross bike. I keep checking chicrosscup.com and WCA to see if they have the cross schedules up yet.

I did make it out about a week ago for a mountainbike ride. Only my second of the year. I rode from home, taking part of the multi-track loop at Swallow Cliff so I only got to do the Canal Trail but it was so nice to be on dirt again. I saw lots of people that day including Ben leading a huge group.

Arrgh!

First, before I rant, Happy Easter to everyone! I had to go through the line for the Easter Bunny three times to get that photo. Christopher would squat and bark at the bunny, try to beat the bunny with his blanket and try to brush the bunny's fur with his brush. But, he would not sit on the bunny's lap or even stand in front of the bunny. I had to grab him and then tickle him to make him smile.

People are complete idiots. Two of the candidates were a man who was a teacher and then a principal for the district who is now retired and a superintendent for a different district who is retiring in June. Both seem like very intelligent guys and I think it's great they are willing to give up their time to serve on the school board (you don't get any type of pay or stipend to be a board member). I'm sure you know where I'm going with this --neither received enough votes. This woman who seems to be a complete idiot was the top vote getter. Flipping channels, we came across the meet the candidates thing on the cable access channel. Seriously, she is an utter imbecile. I'm just totally disgusted right now.

Things are still insanely busy. I'm making lots of phone calls to tell people about a class LIB is doing and still doing 15 hours a week for the other bike group besides covering meetings here and there for the local paper. I really, really need a spring break. Unfortunately, being self-employed means no spring breaks or vacation days. It'll get much easier after June 1 -- I keep telling myself.

I just did a tentative race schedule and it's depressing that it seems to have mainly road stuff on it. I'd much rather be racing in dirt but the road races are a lot closer and neither Tom or I can see Christopher handling the long trek to WORS races or Christopher actually letting me warm up. Who knows, maybe all this roadie stuff might actually make me faster. = )

I'll be doing a Fix a Flat workshop at My Bike in Tinley Park on Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. if anyone is bored. No throwing things though. = )