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One Day Left

Just one day left, y’all. One day. Everything I’ve worked hard for, trained for, cried over, fought over, and laughed over is abou to be put into action. I’ll be leaving that part of this incredible journey behind me when I wake up early tomorrow morning (like freakin 2am y’all).

Over these last few days, the stress has literally melted away. Especially yesterday. I know I have an awesome team back at the office that can make dreams come true one email at a time without me having to check in, a husband that is working hard to put our new home together (we moved literally the day before I flew out for this ride). I was able to focus on enjoying San Francisco with friends and it was amazing.

If I haven’t already eluded to it, emotions are already running high. I have given more hugs and smooches in the last day to all these friends (new and old) than I think I’ve given in my whole life. Last night at our team dinner, each captain gave a speech and dammit if I didn’t almost break down in front of the whole group giving that speech. I blame all the other captains for that lol. I thought speeches were optional – and as I stood at the end of the row of captains, each one of them said a few words – so I quickly threw something together in my mind. Of course I had to go all “emotional Josh” on them all. 🙂

I’m about to jump in the shower now, and head down to Cow Palace to get my bike, have it put together, then attend orientation. After that I’m gonna do some more site seeing and whatnot. Then it’s EARLY to bed (no really, we have to go to bed early to be up by 2 or 3 or whatever).

I’m so excited! It’s almost here…

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T-minus 1 week

A week from this very moment I will be in a camp somewhere in California after having ridden the first day of AIDS/Lifecycle 2018! With all the work and life stress I’ve had not even related to this ride, I honestly don’t know how to feel. It’s a cluster of emotions…but mostly anxiety. I’m goin to get out on my bike tomorrow for one last ride. Probably won’t go that far since it’s my mountain bike, but I need to get these legs moving again – I can’t have them falling asleep or getting small!! They have some serious work to do next week!

My bag is almost packed. Just bought my red dress for red dress day, so of course there will be pictures of that to come soon 🙂 Now I just need to get moved into my new house so I can finish packing, get my life together (kinda) and head to Cali!

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Shipping the bike to California!

OMG. It’s almost here. Tonight was the night I took my bike to the bike shop for them to break it down and ship it to San Francisco. I wanted to document the whole thing in one way or another, so I’ll do my best here.

It was like an oddly special-feeling moment. Walking that bright green bike up the sidewalk and into the shop, thinking about all the miles I’ve put on it so far. 1,422 miles since I bought it in late October to be exact! How crazy is that?!

I approached the counter where the staff had expected me and my other riders to be dropping off our bicycles. I was greeted with an excited smile. It was like something out of a movie. They’d helped me through the whole thing. Buying by bike, service, fitting me with my exact measurements to that bike, and now helping me get it to a destination where I’ll put another 545 miles on it. To think that the next time I ride that bike I’ll be leaving San Francisco…is a little mind blowing, if I’m being totally honest. I won’t sit on that seat again until then. Crazy.

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Square to Square…to SQUARE

Each spring and fall the local cities put in an event called Squre to Square. it runs from one town square to the other. in the spring it starts in Fayetteville and the finish is in Bentonville. Fall is the other way around.

To prepare for the ride, I decided to ride the 30 in one direction with all the other riders, then back! Wasn’t difficult except for the headwind! It was brutal.

I have some video I’ll put together and share here, but I’m now one of those obnoxious cyclists that has to go above and beyond what everyone else is doing that day lol.

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Sunshine is Back!

I tell you what – I’m SO glad that the good weather has returned. We have had such a long ‘winter’, or whatever you want to call it. It has been very frustrating and depressing as someone that is trying to train for a ride!

This weekend, both Saturday and Sunday were sunny and beautiful with highs in the 70s and 80s. Second weekend in a row that’s been enjoyable outside! That’s the Arkansas I know and love to ride around in.

Got out yesterday and rode out to Avoka with Chris and Tyler. That’s 25 miles round trip – I’d originally planned to do that route twice but some loose dogs on the first lap changed our minds on that. ASIDE: I get that if you live in the country you should be able to let your dogs do their own thing. But at least train them not to hate cyclists lol. Okay, that’s not really a thing but a guy can ask, right? Instead of heading back to Avoka we head north up to Bella Vista and returned back south to Bentonville. That was a great 37 mile ride. Chris had to go to work but Tyler and I finished it off with a delicious meat and cheese plate, salad and chicken, spinach and green olive pizza at Pedler’s Pub. I didn’t share my pizza – Tyler had to get his own. 🙂

Today’s ride was more difficult but much shorter. Caught over 900 ft in climbing elevation with just over 20 miles and felt worse lol. Not bad but dang, if I’m not ready for the Cali hills, then I’m in trouble. Ha. We have some pretty fierce hills out here in Arkansas, but of course you have to travel off the trail paths to find them – but they are there! I’ve found some new places to hill train and keep myself challenged. Cody, the spin instructor from Free Ride in Bentonville, led me through the route today. All-in-all it was great!

I’ve spent the afternoon not doing much. Grilled delicious cheeseburgers for dinner. Now, I’ll relax a bit more and perhaps log in and get some work done.

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100 miles in a day – My First Century Ride!

100s of thoughts ran through my head yesterday morning as I jumped out of bed and started getting ready for my first century ride. Before then, the furthest I’d ridden was 70 miles in a day, and I’d only done that one time! Of course I’ve been training a lot, but I still had nerves. Oddly the nerves were frequently overcome with excitement. Probably because I love riding my bike and I love my team – a group of people that I didn’t even know before signing up for this ride last summer. When I said goodbye to the team yesterday, I hugged them and told several I loved him and they responded the same. I mean, who knew it was possible that something like riding bikes can build such strong relationships in such a short amount of time?

Ok, sorry – I got a little mushy there. 🙂

Now let’s talk this huge ride. Holy. Cow. I mean, I knew it was going to be a serious ride to try and hit 100 miles, but shit. I didn’t think about the elevation. That’s TOTALLY my bad. I was the one planning the route after some advice from an avid cyclist. My goal was to prepare us for the couple of days that are 100 miles in California at AIDS/Lifecycle. However, those days don’t have the same amount of elevation that I wrapped into our route (it’s a bit less). #oops
Part of our group had to tap out at lunch and the rest of us kept going. I’m so glad we did, because the three of us that finished hadn’t ridden 100 miles before…until now! We did it – and we experienced it together.

Things we had to fight:

  • Steep inclines
  • Rednecks yelling things out the window
  • Gears that don’t want to shift
  • Flat tires
  • Steep hills
  • Wind
  • The clock

I always say that pictures say a thousand words. So, check these out!

 

I’ve got more pics I’ll add to this post later!!

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The feels hit me hard tonight

Many people don’t know this about me, but it takes a lot for me to get worked into a serious case of the feels. I’m emotional and passionate, yes. Absolutely. However, to become so emotionally raw to the point of tears takes a lot of effort (which usually only happens with the help of Pinot noir and Lifetime family movies).

If you haven’t already looked over the AIDS/Lifecycle YouTube channel, you should def take some time and do it. I recall looking at some of these videos back when I was thinking about the ride, and they brought me to tears then. Tonight, I watched two more and they also brought me to tears.

I’m so excited for this ride. I’m scared of the physical challenge but thrilled at the support I know I will receive in California as well as the support I already have back home from friends and family.

Anyhow, I couldn’t resist not sharing my case of the feels tonight. If you want to know what video I watched last, check this one out from the 2016 ride.

It won’t be long until I’m on an airplane to Cali!

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Blog up!

Hey y’all – thanks for taking a few to swing by my blog. I’ve created and killed off a few blogs over the last decade. The first one was the best and was really all about me and who I really was – it was a lot of fun but was pre-Facebook. Facebook actually killed my blog IMHO. It was way to easy to get sucked into Facebook and just post all my randomly, hilarious thoughts. But lately I’ve become a little jaded with Facebook for obvious reasons. #privacy

Therefore, I decided to start blogging about something I loved and some people may think is interesting. Cycling. I may not be a genius when it comes to bicycles, but I love the sport. I love how it makes me feel and all the joy it brings me…especially when I ride with friends!

Oh, yeah – and I’m riding 545 miles for AIDS/Lifecycle in June 2018. I’m planning to use this blog to document the last few weeks I have for training – then the plan is to actually blog from the road so that I can keep all those details for myself as well as share them with others.

I invite you to follow me as I roll through this exciting journey. I’d love to see your comments and if you have requests, questions or ideas – PLEASE leave a comment and I’ll respond!