Let's Cure it 'Cuz We're Running Out of Time

Oh, man. These warm weekends are the best. On Friday night it was warm enough to sit on the porch with the cats for the first time since November. The cats love it when we're out there. They can lie on us and, if it's Archie, make us lose all feeling in our legs while they look at birds and bunnies and squirrels.

On Saturday it was in the upper 50's...In February. Really. I ran a 3.5 mile route and it didn't hurt my hips too badly. Then we ate lunch and met our friends for a bike ride to Solon. It was incredible. The birds were singing and every motorist who passed us waved and smiled at us. So great!

We made it to the brew pub and ate good food and drank good beer and just as we were getting ready to ride back, Bell Biv Devoe's song, "Poison" came on and we had to dance around the fire like pagan fools.
 

Don't worry. Archie loves dance parties too. I think he may finally have received enough attention.

We decided to keep the dance party going and had everyone meet back at our house. It was a lot of fun and everyone gave us a hard time that we were up WAY past our bedtime. That's right. We stayed up until 11 pm on a Saturday night. Scandalous!

It also gave our friends a longer opportunity to harass John. He isn't all that into dancing in general, so the boys smother him with all of their wild dance moves.

Sunday was a nice, mellow day for me. I spent some time cleaning the hell out of my living room and reading the end of a book. Then, John and I went to the rec services building for a lap swim. I was a little slow on the draw that day, but the nice thing about swimming is that it is basically no impact, so I can just go slowly and work on my form...Which could take decades.

Anyway, it does seem like the weather is breaking and we're moving toward a better season for me and most Iowans I see, seem to be much happier than they were a week ago. Now, if only my back/hip issues would rectify themselves, I'd be all set....

I got to, Got to, Gotta Take it Slow.

We got our BOB trailer and John put it together. Archie seems to like it. If he weren't such an A-hole who puked and pooped every time he rode in the car, we might think about taking him for a ride in it...

So, I started this thing where I try to clean the hell out of one room of our house every day. We still tidy other rooms, but I'm talking about doing more deep cleaning. Since we have a small house - 7 rooms altogether and 1 of those rooms I don't touch on account of Coadster staying there and I respect her privacy and also she's an adult and can clean her own mess. Ahem. Anyway, that leaves me 6 rooms and we only have one bathroom, which sucks for 3 people who need to get ready at the same time, but sure is nice during cleaning time. How much time do people spend cleaning when they own a McMansion and have 3 or more bathrooms. Ugh! I pity the fools....

Since I implemented this plan on Thursday, I have come closer to cleaning the hell out of one room every other day. Okay, so it's not perfect, but it's better than I was doing. I still have 4 more rooms to clean this week. Wish me luck!

Reckless and Wild, They Pour Through the Turns

Okay. I know I said I was going to post about the race a couple of days ago, but apparently, I lamed-out and didn't get to it until today. I still haven't figured out how to load the video John took of the start, but I will try to make that happen this weekend.

So, we walked around State Street before the race. Usually when we go to Madison, we are either hanging out around my brother's house or going to races around the area and don't get to see much of the downtown area.The last time I spent much time on State Street was about 20 years ago. It has changed a lot since then. It used to be all hippie type clothing stores and head shops. Now, it's a mix of all kinds of things. I'm glad about that. We saw Slayer was playing and we thought it might be perfect to hear them right after a fat bike crit, but it turns out that they weren't playing until March. We had to miss the RAWK!

 So, remember how I said they encouraged costumes? Well, Burne had his idea all set. He decided to be a scarecrow, which was brilliant since it was so damn cold out and it gave him the perfect excuse to wear Carhartts and stuff his clothes with nice, warm straw.

 We got ready at the parking ramp at our hotel. I'm sure the other guests saw the straw all over the ground and wondered why someone felt the need to bed down their car for the night...

This was the first time I met the Easter Bunny. Later, at the bar, I got to talk to her a little and she was just as adorable as her costume.

Marvin the Martian was also an excellent costume. Although, he doesn't seem to be all that very aero.

John helped Burne with his costume before the race. I'm not sure what he's doing here, but he might be knocking the stuffing INTO him.

They decided to do a Le Mans start. Which means people stage their bikes and then walk to a designated area. When they blow the whistle, they all run to their bikes and then hop on them and ride. I didn't hear them from where I was standing, but Burne said all of the racers were yelling and whooping and making tons of noise when they started running.

Our friend Rob didn't wear a costume, but he did pretty well in the race. By the way we gauged it, we figure he was somewhere in the top 10. They said they placed the first three men and women, but after that, everyone else was 4th.

They called this the World Championship snowy, nighttime, fat bike crit...Which, of course, just means it's the ONLY snowy, night time, fat bike crit. We kept telling Burne that no matter how he did, he would be 4th place in the World Championships.

Burne did great. He got right out there and was having a blast around the first couple of laps, when his back tire went flat. Damn it!

John saw it and went to meet him at the start of the race. He asked everyone around if they had a pump and helped Burne pump up his tire. Burne got around another lap and a half before his tire went flat again and since he didn't want to mess-up the rim of his beautiful, new bike, he had to give up the ghost and DNF (did not finish).

After we all met back at the bar, we asked Burne if he had fun on what he was able to ride of the race. He said it was a blast. So, according to how I look at racing, where the person who has the most fun, wins, Burne was actually the snowy, night time, fat bike world champion. RAWK!

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

Okay. So, my weekend away was amazing. We headed to Blue Mounds State Park and met my brother for some cross country skiing. The conditions were fast and icy, not my favorite...Especially when I haven't really skied all year. My brother tired to help me feel more comfortable skiing down  hills, but I needed some practice. So, I told him and John to head out on the longer course, and I would repeat the easier course and that worked out really well for me.

We headed to the Grumpy Troll for lunch and then made it to Madison and checked in to our hotel.
My brother had to go help with Winterfest and we made plans to meet him later for dinner.

 We decided to walk around Lake Monona at sunset and check out the cool ice formations up close and personal. It was cold as hell outside, so we didn't walk for long, but it was gorgeous.

 Stinky texted to say she was at my brother's house and our friend Burne to tell us he made it to town as well. We made plans for the evening. We were all meeting at the bar in our hotel and then we would figure out where to go for dinner from there.

We decided on Brocach the Irish Pub and it was great. They have a wonderful fish fry on Friday nights and John ordered an awesome appetizer of fries with melted cheese curds and veggie shepherds pie on top of them. Holy cow! That was good. Stinky and her cousin got some time to hangout and they are already planning their next time to hang-out.

My brother finally finished volunteering and we all headed to his place. He wanted to sit in his hot tub, which just happens to be located outside where it just happened to be below zero. I was too much of  a wuss to go in there, but most of them did and John said he hair was freezing. Crazy people....

On Saturday morning, we headed downtown to watch the skijoring. It was ridiculously cold and the dogs still were kind enough to pull their humans around on the snow. It was kind of fun to watch.

John and I headed to the indoor hot tub at the hotel to warm-up and then we grabbed Burne and went back out to have lunch and check out the high school cross country skiing championships. My brother asked if we wanted to ski that day, but we decided to take a break, since we were still so sore from the day before and it was about 20 below with the windchill.

In the evening, we met even more family members for Mexican food and margaritas. Ole'! We had to scurry back downtown by 7 to help Burne get ready for his race. I'll write a little more about that tomorrow and hopefully upload a video of it.

I will say, that the race was some good old fashioned, icy, cold fun. There were a lot of costumes. Which, is as it should be, as far as I'm concerned. One guy wore almost no clothes...And did I mention it was freezing outside? I can't imagine that could be at all good for a person. Anyway, the pin~ata guy above, wore my favorite costume.

We headed back to the Irish Pub and met our teammate and his wife and talked bikes and RAGBRAI and racing and then we all were way to exhausted to stay out any longer.

 We woke up to our last day on Sunday morning and got some packing up done, then headed to Marigold for breakfast. If you ever go to Madison, try to eat here. The food was amazing and the ambiance was charming. the duck confit hash was one of the best things I've ever eaten.

We met my brother back at Blue Mounds for one last ski. The temps were almost in the twenties, so it felt nice and warm, but the snow was falling...Which made the skiing slower, in other words, better, for me. We got a good hour and a half in, while Burne rode the fat tire trails there, then we met Stinky for lunch back at the Grumpy Troll.

Driving home was tricky in the storm, but we made it all in one piece and then we had to contend with the beastly cats. It was just one scary adventure after the next on Sunday...

Lovely as a Winter Day.

I'm not the biggest Valentine's Day celebrator. You either are a good partner most days or you aren't. Artificial displays on a required day make me sad for people.I was single for many, many years before John and I started dating. If I want flowers, I buy them or grow them for me. I don't wear jewellery. and I'm trying to be better about not eating sweets. What John does give me every day, but was very apparent today, was his thoughtfulness. consideration and respect.

Today there were some scary, snowy road conditions on the drive home from Wisconsin. Stinky didn't feel comfortable driving in them. So, John drove her car, while I drove outs until we got to Iowa and the roads were better. Then Stinky was more comfortable driving and he and I followed her in our car all of the rest of the way  home. He said it  wasn't a big deal, but he is so good at helping out and making sure the girls and I feel safe and comfortable. It's always a big deal to me. Of course, the biggest deal is that he puts up with  my fat, orange, cat.

Here's to appreciating your partner and treating them with kindness and consideration every day.

Take Off to the Great White North

This was from the first time we went to Wisconsin to CX country ski in 2011.

Well, kids. We're heading to Wisconsin this weekend. We haven't been skiing there since 2011, but since we aren't getting any skiable snow here this Winter, we're going to head North and find us some. It will be nice to see my brother and sister and Stinky is going to come with us. I can't wait. it might be the only real vacation we get this year, where we actually leave the state, not for a race. Winter Fest in Madison should be a lot of fun, and you know how I am....I'll be sure to take a ton of photos.

I hope you all have a great weekend and nice Valentine's Day...If you celebrate that kind of thing.

Me, My Thoughts are Flower Strewn, Ocean Storm, Bayberry Moon

I got this shot on the internet. Our bob trailer should look something like this.

So, remember how I said I wanted to do more touring and bike camping? Well, John just made that easier. I thought I would just slowly buy paniers in the next few years, and eventually get set-up to have enough of what I need to bike camp and tour. John emailed me yesterday and said he bought a bob trailer, used and on sale on ebay. I'm excited to do some weekend bike camping trips. I hope we can finally do our ride to Stone City, camp at Matsell bridge and hang out and eat and drink at the General Store Pub. We can also seriously think about going self-contained on RAGBRAI this year.

I've read the pros and cons of using a bob trailer instead of bagging it all on your bikes. The cons seem to be that if there is a strong crosswind, it can be hard to handle your bike, and that it can be wide on narrow roads, people are tempted to pack too much stuff on it, because they can and if you are trying to transport it on a ferry, it can be cumbersome.

The benefits to a bob trailer are that it's easier to balance your weight than with paniers, it can carry as much as you need, we can ride it on gravel roads and even some light single track and we can lock it to a tree and leave our campsite with our bikes and without any bags to go on more of a training ride.

I'm excited to see how it goes, try out the trailer, save some money on  hotels, but most importantly, to BIKE CAMP!

My Brain is Hanging Upside Down

This weekend was kind of migraine dang doozy. I had a migraine for most of Friday. Saturday I was exhausted the entire day.  I should have known what that meant. Even so, I got a 3.5 mile run in and John and I did a 31 mile road ride, just neither of them were very fast.

I woke up on Sunday with a REALLY bad migraine. Probably the worst I've had since October. I watched a European cyclocross race and then I couldn't take the pain any longer. I took my migraine meds and slept for over 3 hours.

The worst of the pain was gone, but I was still pretty weak. We were going to swim laps and I was going to try to get a run in, but I couldn't do it. Instead, I read an entire (though, very short) novel and snuggled with Heidi cat.

I finally felt better in the evening. Instead of watching the Super Bowl, we met a couple of friends of ours for fondue and cocktails. We had a lovely night. The Super Bowl was on, but it wasn't all over every wall, so we could watch some commercials and got distracted by the shininess of the halftime show.

Here's hoping for a migraine free work week....

I'm Just Action and Other Times, Reaction

Soooooo, I just went ahead and made an appointment with my chiropractor to see if he can right the wrongs of my back/ hips or whatever is out of alignment. I go in tomorrow and I'm hoping things get better so I can start running again. I seem to be okay riding my bike with the issue and I'm going to try to swim laps tomorrow morning to see if that works for me.

I have been going to the same chiropractor on and off since my early twenties. I have been to a few others, but he is really a stand-up guy. The first guy I went to was all about making money. He should tell me I needed to come back twice a week forever and then he tried to sell me all this crap and do some weird ultrasound like thing to my feet. Don't worry, he let me make payments and charged me interest. Grrrrrr. I was 21 years old and didn't know any better.

This guy I see now is great. Last time I went for a specific thing after I crashed my bike so hard during RAGBRAI. After a month or two, he told me that that thing looked like it was righted and then it would just be maintenance, so if I didn't want to spend the money, I didn't have to make any more appointments, but maintenance sure wouldn't hurt me. It's kind of nice to be able to trust your health care provider, isn't it?

Anyway, the chiropractor may not help whatever's wrong with me, but I'm still doing stretches and exercises and using the massage cane thingy and attacking it from all angles. We'll see how it all goes...

Must Have Been the Right Month, Must Have Been a Good Time

Hey! It's time for January's monthly stats. It was a weird month, full of annoying, old people, injuries. John told me he thought I might have subluxation in my back. Which sounds about right. I'm sure whatever I did to keep myself from falling on the ice that one time, threw my back out in all kinds of different ways. I'll be making an appointment with my chiropractor here in the near future.

Anyway, I hoped to have a lot more running miles in this month, but I did what I could. Here are the stats:

Running - 47 miles.

Road riding - 122 miles.

Bike trainer work outs - 3 hours worth.

Lap swimming - 7.5 miles.

Walking - 6.5 miles.

CX country skiing - 0 miles. Wah.

Books read - TEN WHOLE BOOKS! - "10:04", Ben Lerner, "The Changeling" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, "Descent" by Tim Johnston, "The Complete Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi, "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone" by J. K. Rowling, "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde, "the Twelve Tribes of Hattie" by Ayana Mathis, "Anatomy of a Disappearance", by Hisham Matar, "Other People We Married" by Emma Straub. Let's hear it for Winter hibernation reading!

Bog Posts Written - 12

Creative writing - Not much.

Pictures drawn or painted. 1 painted and 1 more getting drawn out.

House projects done - um, none...Again.

Physical injuries - 2 and they both suck.

So far this new month, I'm licking my wounds and hoping to have a zero in the column for physical injuries for the next report.

What a Drag it is Getting Old

Wow. This weekend. What a gas! The weather was lovely and my hip on my left side was FINALLY almost all better. I actually walked 2.18 miles on Friday night and tried to run little parts of it and didn't hurt too badly.

Saturday was really one of the best days I've had in a long time. It was well over 40 degrees at the end of January. My day look like this:

8 am - watch the elite women's world championship cyclocross race. It was incredibly close.

9 am - read my book and drink tea.

10 am - go to walk my 2.18 mile route and end up running the whole thing with almost no pain. Yea!

11 am. Run errands. go to bank, go to Can Shed and turn in recyclables for money. Go to the recycling place to get rid of glass that aren't refundable. Go to Prairie Lights and get my 4 books for the month. I got some really good ones, so I was pretty excited.

12 pm - We did a few things around the house and then got ready for a bike ride. Hooray!

1'ish pm. - We took off toward Solon, which is a very hilly ride. I hadn't ridden those hills since September, and apparently, I've lost a little fitness since then. It was beautiful and the weather was lovely and it all made me so very happy.


2:30'ish pm - Arrive at Big Grove Brewery and have some amazing food and a couple of beers and half-watch the Iowa State  basketball game and text Coadster my condolences after they lost.

3:30 - Ride home in more bucolic scenery and unseasonably wonderful temps.

A little before 5 - Get home, John washed off our bikes while I bathed, I cleaned up stuff in the kitchen while John bathed. Watch an Irish movie called, "Jimmy's Hall" and eat grilled peanut butter and jelly.

9'ish pm - Go to sleep and have lovely dreams of running and biking and food and beer and books and movies. Ahhhhh.

Sunday was another great day. We watched the professional men's world Championship cyclocross race and then we were going to run, but it was raining, so we swam laps instead. After we got home, the rain had stopped, so we both went on our respective runs. I was able to to another 2.18 miles with no damage to my hip.

We were supposed to go bowl with our RAGBRAI group and we were running just a little late, when we heard a loud crashing sound. We both assumed it was the cats, because it usually is...This time, we were wrong. The walter filter under our sink, cracked and fell and all the cold water came rushing out. Nice. John turned off the water, we cleaned it up with towels and then we headed out to bowl.

My friend Dawn got a score and was very happy.

We met our friends at the bowling alley and it was great. We talked about RAGBRAI possibilities and whether we would caucus and caught up on everything in general.

My friend Burne just missed scoring 100 and he was woebegone.

After we bowled a couple of games, some of the group went to play pool, but we had a date with Menards to see if we could replace that water filter.

Archie trying to "help" fix our sink.

The water filter wasn't all that replaceable and then I woke up on Monday with some crazy pain in my OTHER hip. That's right. I think it might be some kind of sciatica, because the pain shoots right down from my butt to the arch of my foot. FANTASTIC! I'm not sure about this whole second half of my turning 50 year. Things are seriously starting to take a turn. Check back next time when my arms fall off and my knees start to buckle...Oh, holy hell!

Check Ignition and May God's Love be With You...

Earlier this month I read Ben Lerner's novel, "10:04". In it, he talks about the shuttle disaster and brings up the speech Reagan gave addressing it. I had written a post about The Challenger Disaster on my blog however many years ago, but I can't find it. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the incident, I figured I'd just a write a new one.

"And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them."

Ronald Reagan


I was 20 years old this day in 1986. I had been working at a ski resort in Big Bear Lake, California when the snow ran out. It was too warm to ski and only the full-time, old timers could stay and get paid. My boyfriend and I had a plan (which was pretty impressive for us). His mom had gone back to college after Neal graduated from high school and was going to be studying at The Sorbonne for Spring semester. She asked him to house sit in his childhood home in the Noe/Valley area of San Francisco.

We were originally going to leave for San Francisco on Sunday, but we decided to wait and watch the Superbowl with our friends at the ski resort. I got so much grief for being from Iowa and having Ronnie Harmon throw the Rose Bowl a few weeks earlier, that I wanted to at least watch the Superbowl Shuffle Bears beat the Patriots, to get a little respect for the Midwestern sports teams from my Southern California coworkers who liked to make fun of me for being a hayseed.

Neal and I were both messes, in states of arrested development from colorful childhoods neither of us had had a chance to work through and recover from. We probably shouldn't have been dating anyone, let alone each other, but at least we both understood each other and for a couple of  years, we were both fine moving every 6 months and with letting things happen to us, instead of making actual decisions.

We finally got on the road on Monday and drove down the mountain to one of those weird, boring, Southern California, nowhere towns like San Bernadino and rented a hotel room. Compared to our crappy apartment in Big Bear, the hotel felt fancy. We did super mature things like jumping on the bed and eating pizza while watching cable TV.

We were full of hope for whatever adulthood would bring us, we were both going to be old enough to drink legally in the Summer and we thought going to a bigger city would make us feel like grown-ups in a way that living in the mountains or the Redwoods and not having bank accounts and just keeping what little money we had hidden under our beds, did not.

When we woke-up on Tuesday, we packed up our stuff and watched the Space Shuttle Challenger go off. Then we immediately headed to our car and drove across the street to a gas station. In the car we talked about how cool it was that there was a teacher on it and what an amazing experience that must be for her. We walked into the gas station to grab road food, and everyone was staring at the TV. I made a comment about how awesome it was to be able to watch it, and they all stared at me like I was an asshole.

"You think it's awesome to watch the shuttle explode?"

"What? No. It exploded? When? We watched it go off and it was fine...."

"Then you left too soon because it exploded not long after that."

I had no idea what to say to that, except, "Shit." and everyone around me nodded in agreement.

In many respects, Reagan's speech was right, I was being pulled into the future and the future was going to be painful. If I could go back those thirty years and know what was coming, I think I would have been terrified that I wouldn't be able to handle it all, but being 50 years old now, I'm even more hopeful for finding out that I could...

And the Backs of My Eyes Hum With Things I've Never Done

The 1st RAGBRAI I did was a group of 15'ish. Now we're unwieldy 40'ish

They announced the RAGBRAI route on Saturday. I knew it was probably going to be Southern, since it's been a while. I also know the reason it's been a while, is because Southwest Iowa is not the best RAGBRAI route. The towns are small and many of the inhabitants have not been all that welcoming in the past. We did joke about how Southwestern Iowa, being the meth capitol and all, might make it the first RAGBRAI where we actually lose weight...

The big problem with some of the towns we're going to for our overnight stays, are their very small size. One of the town only has 400 some families in it. Imagine what 10 to 20,000 people converging on that town might look like. Hopefully, they'll have enough vendors in the towns to accommodate everyone. John said in the past, they arrived at a small town that was out of all food from the vendors, so they headed to the only grocery store in town that had a sign that read, "closed for RAGBRAI". They ended up foraging at the only Casey's in town and basically had chips and candy for dinner.

I loved the route the first year we rode. Straight through the middle of the state. Here is the stop in Templeton.

So, now John and I are kicking around RAGBRAI ideas. We still could go with our group from beginning to end and just deal with trying to forage for food in these smaller towns. The other idea we had was to drop our bags off with the RAGBRAI group, but then start from Iowa City and meet them half way. We could map out our own route and hopefully, my sister would let us stay there our first day, and then we could stay at a hotel in Centerville the next and meet our friends in Leon. I also found this cool map:http://www.iowadot.gov/maps/msp/pdf/bikemap.pdf , so we can figure out which roads would be the safest to ride there. Also, we could use this for any kind of bike trips we want to take in Iowa. Lord knows, I love bike trips. Anyway, it would be a fun adventure and John and I thought it could be fun to document what those couple of towns look like before and then during RAGBRAI. We'll see which way we go. I kind of like the second scenario, because I wouldn't be so sleep deprived and I'd get better food for a couple of days and get to ride without 10,000 - 20,000 other people for a couple of days, but then still do the fun spectacle that is RAGBRAI with our friends for the last three days. Win/win.

Our group is also getter really large, so the logistics get trickier every year. I want to ask my sister if we can stay with her with our whole group for RAGBRAI, but it's a lot to ask of people without a lot of money to let over 40 people shower and use the bathroom at your house. I wish we had gone through Ottumwa on my first RAGBRAI, when there were only 15 of us...

Either way, we'll have a fun bike adventure and that's all that matters.

And I'm Gettin' Old...

Some bad kitty let their mark on the bike path.

This weekend was an interesting mixed bag. On Saturday, I was still feeling kind of crappy, so I rested. I read and drew. Then in the afternoon, I felt better, so I went for a little 2 mile walk to test out my hip. My hip was okay with the walking and oh my, did it feel good to be outside. I used to think it was moving that kept my spirits up in the Winter. Now, I know that's a big part of it, but moving also has to be accompanied with going outside. It helped my mood immensely.

Saturday night was date night at our house. We had dinner at Apres. We got the salmon salad with poached egg and grapefruit, the duck confit poutine and the roasted corn and lobster dip and split it all. We had a lovely dinner and then went home and watched "The Martian". I read the book and found it very entertaining. The movie was great too.

There was a full moon this weekend, but we had such a nice couple of days, that even the moon didn't make me nutty or cranky. Also, it made for a beautiful evening.

I know I'm supposed to be 50 years old, but apparently, sometimes, I get confused and act like I'm 5. This Sunday was a perfect example of that. I felt better. I felt soooo much better. Any adult would be glad, and would try not to push it too hard, so that they didn't have any kind of relapse. Any RATIONAL adult, that is. Too bad I don't fit that description.

I felt better, so I ran around like an idiot, trying to do everything that I haven't been able to do for the last week or so. I walked my 2'ish mile route. I tried to run little parts of it, until it was clear my hip wasn't THAT much better. Then John and I swam laps for an hour. Afterward, we sat in the jacuzzi and watched a little of the Hawkeye basketball game on the big screen TV there. I'm serious, if they sold beer there, it would be standing room only...

Anyway, after the swim, we had lunch and then decided that since it was all the way up in the lower 30's, we should get the road bikes out and go for a little ride. It turned out to be a lot littler than we planned. I've been riding on my trainer and my hip didn't bother me a bit, so it didn't occur to me that it would be a problem on the road either. Turns out, my hip didn't like the aero position. we got about 8.5 miles out of town and had to turn back around and I had to ride my bike in the most upright position possible. I'm sure I looked more than a little odd. Whatever. I'm used to it.

So, I exceeded my limits yesterday. I'd like to say I regretted it, but it was worth it to get to go out and play on a beautiful day. I am trying to act like a 50 year old today. I'm just commuting to work and back in my very upright position and we'll reevaluate again tomorrow.