Not my dog...

Cute picture though.

Over 600 miles

Last year I rode an estimated 550 miles. After tonights ride my total mileage for the year is now 608 miles. With so many riders on our cycling team well over 1,000 miles, some over 3,000, my riding 600+ miles doesn't seem too impressive. It means a lot to me though, I'm to a point now where I was angry at myself because I couldn't get in at least 20 miles. There was a very strong headwind tonight. I rode out from the bike shop to Hines with Brian and Scott, but I wasn't able to stay with them very long. Before the ride I wasn't feeling my best, but I knew I had to go, since I hadn't ridden for the past week. The first 1/2 was into the wind, I was pushing so hard to catch up to Brian that I was becoming less and less aware of my surroundings. I've never had such severe tunnel-vision. I was going into potholes that I've been easily avoiding for months, slipping on patches of sand, then got a branch in the face. Now I understand why Tour de France riders crash into clearly marked signs and other obstructions in the road. The turn around point for me was 5 mile hill, which I somehow got to the top of. I stopped and rested for about two minutes. Once I re-hydrated myself and caught my breath I rode down. Then just for fun... I climbed it again. After another rest at the top I headed back down and back to the shop. With the wind for the most part at my back I was able to finally get moving. I gathered up every bit of what I had left and pounded my way back. Every time I glanced at my speedometer I was doing 20-22MPH. Totally spent, I pull into the parking lot and looked at how many miles I put in tonight. WTF!! Only 17.93 miles! Crap! After an hour and ten minutes of hard, miserable riding, my average speed was only 15.3. Double Crap! It really just proves that I need to ride more, much as I hate to say it. I have to blame work... after doing the work of three people for 9-10 hours, I don't feel like riding my bike, I feel like banging my head against a wall then going to bed. Speaking of which, I really should be in bed right now....

Tour de France

I made vegan pancakes this morning. Sound weird? They're actually very simple to make and yummy. (from Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook)
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbs canola oil
1 1/4 cup soy, rice, almond or any other non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbs maple syrup
--- Sift flour and baking powder, then add all other ingredients. Mix until just combined, a few lumps are ok. Heat pan with small amount of canola oil for 1 minute. Use 1/4 cup measure to add batter to pan. Flip when top of pancake just begins to set.

So anyways, after enjoying our Saturday morning pancakes, my husband and I plop ourselves in front of the computer to watch Stage 19 of the Tour de France. We're watching a live feed on the computer because we do not have a TV. So the race is over now... there's one more day of riding, but basically it's over. Carlos Sastre won after todays time trial. Now that Lance isn't racing and riders are being booted left and right for doping... well, the tour just doesn't excite me so much anymore. That said I'm going for a bike ride tonight. Tomorrow morning I'm going to a mountain bike race to take pictures and video of our RACING GREYHOUNDS in action.

Blogging fail

So yeah, I'm not totally into doing regular blog entries just yet. A lot has happened since my first post... I'll just touch on a few things.
-I'm up to 530 miles on my BMC. I attempted, and failed miserably at my first road bike race at Cedar Creek. At that point I think I only had 250 miles in for the year... I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Our cycling team is doing awesome otherwise. I've been getting cool pictures at road, mountain and tri races. Recently I've started video taping the team in action, the goal being to create a promotional compilation video.
-At work we've had two people quit and another person has been out these past two weeks because she needed to get her appendix out. So I got promoted then ended up doing the work of 3 people. I've been so wiped out lately.... I can't even express how I feel about my boss who elected not to hire the VERY competent assistant who came in for a working interview 2 1/2 weeks ago.
-To entertain myself I regularly look at the FAIL Blog. Nothing makes you feel better than watching others' stupidity and misfortune. Sad, but true. Within the FAIL blog is a link to graphjam which I enjoy quite a lot.