UPDATE

Brice is doing alot better. He is out of ICU and in a normal room now. The plastic surgeon removed the wires from his jaw yesterday. He can smile now! He still has the trake (sp) in so he can breathe. I just found out yesterday that he has a ruptured ear canal and the other ear is full of dried blood, so he can't hear very well. He is able to stand up with assistance and can sit in a chair for a few minutes at a time. He has alot of nerve damage in his right leg and his left arm, which is preventing movement. Alot of his teeth are chipped and crooked, so my mom is upset about all the money she spent on braces when he was a kid (lol). But considering everything that he has been through, he's doing pretty well. He is pretty grumpy. He is going a little stir crazy in that hospital.

The benefit ride is still on for Saturday. I haven't heard what the route is yet. But I should find out today. Hopefully the weather will cooperate! If anyone is planning on doing the ride, let me know so we can meet up.

We are almost moved out of Charles' house. We should be completely moved out by this weekend. We have thrown so much stuff away. It is great! I love throwing junk away and cleaning house. It makes things less streesful for me. I have this wierd thing where I get super stressed when there is alot of clutter around. So less is better, for sure. My house is alot smaller than Charles' so we are down the the essentials now.

I still haven't been on my bike.

Cold

It is cold outside. It has been cold all week. It isn't raining anymore, so that is good. The sun is even shining a little. But it is still cold. Not sure about the mountain bike race this weekend. It is going to be really muddy. I have never really intentionally ridden my mt bike in mud, so I'm not too sure about it. Maybe I can just close my eyes like I usually do on my mt bike and everything will turn out ok. I still haven't been on a bike for awhile. Since 12 Miles anyway. I think this is the longest break from riding I have had since I started riding 4 years ago. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess we'll see.

12 Miles of Hell

12 Miles of Hell
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

No bike

I sold my road bike last week and I ordered another one. My timing was sorta off because I won't get my new bike until the first of April. So, I am without a road bike right now. I guess it isn't that big of a deal since I haven't ridden on the road in about 3 weeks. I have been on my mt bike twice during that 3 weeks. In other words, I have NOT been riding. I have been running, though. We are up to 4 miles three to four days a weeks. My goal is 5 days this week. That will put me at 20 miles for the week. Not too bad, I would like to get on my bike some too. Maybe a mt bike ride at Elk City to pre-ride the course for the race this weekend. I have never done a "real" mt bike race. I have done 12 Miles of Hell twice, but I don't know if that is considered a "real" mt bike race. So, this weekend will be an experience, for sure. I don't have a NORBA license yet and Charles told me to just buy my license at the race and get an expert license. I can tell you that my "skills" are not expert level. I think my fitness is, but that is where it ends. For example, I wore my brake pads completely down to the metal at 12 Miles because I braked down everything. I mean EVERYTHING!!! Another example, Charles said, "did you ride down the Kevinator at 12 Miles." I said, "no, I walked." He said, "you could have ridden the easy way down, instead of walking the Kevinator." I said, " I know, I walked the easy way down!" The last example, at registration I was talking to this guy from Tulsa that races road and cyclocross, Nathan. I got my race number and I asked him, "what side does the number go on?" He laughed and said, "this isn't road racing, retard, it goes on the front of your bike, not on your jersey!" Okay, three examples why I maybe should not be racing expert. But what the heck, I might as well give Becky someone to race against, huh? :-) I know she gets tired of racing herself.

We spent all weekend moving. We moved everything out of the garage, the attic and the storage shed into a storage locker. We have so much crap! It's a good thing Charles was there because I would have just thrown everything away and we wouldn't have needed storage. I guess we'll start moving into my house shortly. We have to be out of Charles' house on March 28. It looks like we are going to be busy the rest of the month. Maybe I can start racing road in April.

Rough week

Well I've had a pretty hard week. Mainly just a hard Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thursday morning my brother was in a motorcycle/car accident. He was on his way to work around 6:30 in the morning. He was cruising down highway 412 into Enid when a pick-up pulled out in front of him. His bike hit the truck and flipped the truck on its side and my brother's face went into the truck. His face hit the truck and he bounced off and hit the ground. Brice tried to stop before impact because there were skid marks where he tried to avoid the truck. The guy in the truck was flown to OKC for internal injuries and Brice was taken to St. Mary's hospital in Enid. He broke his back and now has two rods on both sides of his spine and most of the nerve damage they think has been fixed. He broke both shoulder blades, numerous ribs, his left upper arm and both the radius and the ulna in his right wrist. The spent 8 hours reparing his face on Friday. He basically broke every single bone in his face. It took 10 plates and 50+ screws to put his face back together. His jaws are wired shut and he has a trach in so he can breath. They also had to put a chest tube in because the broken ribs punctured a lung. Tomorrow they are doing a skin graph because his right eye lid is gone. My mom, who is a nurse at St. Marys, said they are going to try to wake him up today and get him out of bed to see if he can walk. He is able to move his legs, so hopefully he will be able to walk again. It is so difficult to see him in that hospital bed. He is so swollen and black and blue. I keep thinking of all the times when we were younger and how mad I would get at him for always messing with me. He has two kids and is married. His oldest son is 15 and his youngest is 9. I know it is even harder on them to see their dad that way. The youngest one hasn't seen him yet. I have been amazed by all the people that came to the hospital to see how he is doing. People that we used to go to church with when we were younger and people he went to school with. Even his high school principal came by to check on him. At one point there were like 50 people in the ICU waiting room just for him. Alot of his biker friends are organizing a ride for him to raise money. My dad called my last night to see if I wanted to ride on the back of my uncle's bike. I cannot imagine getting on a motorcycle right now. I have ridden motorcycles since I was 5 years old, but after this accident, I don't think I can do it. I am not even sure I can ride my bicycle on the road anymore. I am pretty scared of cars right now. I think I can do it in a pack, but not by myself. Not yet anyway.

I raced (if you call it racing) 12 Miles of Hell yesterday. It was quite humerous. I have only been on my mt bike maybe 5 times in the past 2 years. But I got a good start and I was doing good on the climbs but the decents scared me to death. I think I braked the entire way down the hills. I would pass a ton of guys up the hills and then they would totally drop me going down. I guess I need to practice my decents. I crashed a few times, but it was mainly just tipping over. At all of the check points they said that I was the first female through, so I was pretty stoked. I crashed one more time after that and I bent my rear derailleur. I stood on the side of the trail for like 10 minutes trying to fix it. Carl came along and tried to fix it but he pulled a little to hard and broke it. He said sorry, just cyclocross it to the finish. So, I picked up my bike and took off running. The run didn't last long so I thought, I can probably coast down hill and then run uphill. I hopped on to coast and the derailleur got caught in my rear wheel, nearly making my crash again. So, I had to walk the last mile and a half to the finish. I also had to watch 4 women and about 80 men pass me in that last mile. It sucked!

I am pretty sore today from carrying my bike and from crashing on the rocks. And I have a handful of bruises to show. But I now that I am not even close to being as sore as my brother is right now. I guess when things like this happen, your entire perspective changes and in the big scheme of things a little mt bike race or road race is really not that big of a deal. There are so many more important things in life.

Here is a link to the flyer for the benefit ride for my brother. http://ironlivergoons.com/BRICE.htm. I am thinking about taking my bicycle and riding some of the route with them. So, if anyone is interested in riding for a good cause, let me know. I know it is mainly motorcycles, but bicycles face the same problems with cars as motorcycles. Plus, there will be lots of food, beer and a band after the ride.

Running

I have started running again. I found this training plan on the internet that I am trying to follow. Monday morning at 6:30 Charles and I ran 3 miles. I was very very sore the rest of the day and even more sore yesterday. We ran 3 miles yesterday evening. I am not that sore today. It is true that running muscles are totally different than cycling muscles. My cadio is fine but my legs hurt pretty bad when I run. I'm thinking about doing some duathlons. There is one in Okarche on March 20 that I think I'm going to do. I used to run alot before I started riding so maybe it won't be too bad of a transition. I think I will do ok on the bike part, but I'm not so sure about the run after the bike. Hopefully the legs will be ok.

This weekend there is a circuit race in Tulsa and a mt bike race in Lawton. So far that is the racing plan. It's sorta odd that I am looking forward to the mt bike race and I am not all that enthused about the road race. I have not touched my mt bike in over a year. I mean literally. It has been hanging in the garage for over a year. But, I did 12 Miles of Hell 2 years ago without ever pre-riding the course and got 137. I was like the 4th woman to finish. So, I think I'm in better shape now than I was then, so it may not be too bad. But then again, my technical skills are lacking, to say the least. It will fun anyway. As long as I don't hurt myself, that is!

I'm already burned out on road racing and I haven't even raced yet. I'm not sure what the story is. I think it is because I always ride with people that are so much stronger than I am and I never feel like I am getting stronger. It is very frustrating. Last year I was getting dropped by the same people that I am getting dropped from this year. Plus, I think I am putting things in perspective a little more. Most of the women that I race against don't have full-time jobs. They either go to school or live off their husbands. So, I think I would be pretty dang stong too if all I had to do was ride my bike. But, working all day long and then trying to squeeze in a workout is tough. And then spending all weekend traveling and racing is a little too much. I want to enjoy my weekends and recover from the work week. I still want to ride and do some races, but not full time. I am at that point where I have to race against pro women. So, unless I dedicate myself to bike racing, it is going to be frustrating. Most racing I do will be women's open. So, all the women, no matter your category, have to race together. Or it is a cat 1/2/3 race. Either way it is hard. Imagine putting all the men in an open race. The cat 3's and 4's would then have to race against the pros. Gee, I wonder who would win!?! Who am I to compete against women who have been racing for 10+ years and don't have anything else to do all day than train???

I guess I need to give it a shot this weekend and see how it goes. Maybe my perspective will change after the race.