It's Just Another Day for You and Me in Paradise.

 I know I sound like a broken record lately. Blah, blah, blah, sick, wah, wah, no strength, boo hoo, snot and bitterness and bile...But I'm STILL sick.

Remember how last week I said I wasn't feeling well and I was surprised I did so well in my race? Well, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that there were no power sections in it and the women I raced against were more cautious about riding the trickier sections than I was (which almost never happens). This Saturday when I tried to race at our local race, which is also one of my favorites, I had absolutely nothing. No power, no strength and I felt like I couldn't get any air into my lungs the entire race. I came in last and was beat by people who hadn't beaten me this year.

Of course, it was rainy and cold for the duration of my race, which probably didn't help with my recovery. Most bike racers will generally say, "At least you're out there racing..." When you have a bad race. We're all insane, so for us, the best thing you can do is be out there. So, when people said that to me after my "race of shame", I thought it was very sweet, but also had to laugh, because being "out there" when it's cold and rainy probably wasn't the best idea when trying to get over a bad bug.

My youngest daughter and John cheered me on the entire time and gave me hugs after the race when I was feeling particularly lame. I was shaking and coughing so badly after the race, that we decided not to stick around. Instead, we went to Big Grove for lunch and then home to take a nice, long nap.

The drag about being sick this long as far as racing is concerned,is that it's been long enough that I'm starting to lose fitness. So, even once I'm done being weak from being sick, I will still be weak because I'm not able to train. What I will try this week, is doing short, easy efforts that hopefully won't drain me so much that my cold lasts even longer, but keeps my fitness from decaying even more. We'll see how that works...

Later that evening, we went to our friends' wedding. We ride RAGBRAI with them and John has been friends with Bry since the late 90's. The wedding reception was lovely and short and sweet. Perfect.

Here my friend G. and I were trying to do an ironic wedding selfie, of us front and center and the bride and groom in the background. We weren't able to capture the bride and groom dancing behind us at a flattering angle for us. So, in the nature of the word selfie (a derivative of the word, selfish, I believe), we said, "screw them" and just took a photo of ourselves. At least it cracked us up...

They hired Coadster to clean-up and make sure the food and drink were stocked. Which made the wedding even more fun. We got to heckle her and she returned our heckles in kind with some lovely eye rolls and scowls.

The boys seemed to have lively discussions about, I'm assuming, bike parts and specs and tire pressure and the best routes to ride and probably, also, beer.