Day One - November 14

Sunrise on November 14th was at 6:37am. Rideout started at 6:38am. Team Tutu Much started out winding our way through Miami. Honestly, we started in the Pinecrest neighborhood -- home of some serious mansions. I think the Ride Organizers felt guilty as it wasn't Miami proper, so they wound us through neighborhoods for about 20 miles. The temps started climbing. Julie was not happy as weather.com had forecast temps in the low 70's.

So...the first day....at Pit 2 (mile 28?) I stopped for the day. While I'd drank 70 ounces of water from my camelback and 3 16.9 ounce bottles of Propel, very little was coming out. Hardly any, in fact. Add to that that I was overheating it seemed much wisher to stop. Kathy, Ron W., Tom and Ron O. all continued to press on to Pit 3 and lunch. I was eventually transported to Pit 3 where I found Kathy, Tom and Ron O. Seems Ron W's knee was not cooperating and he had to stop between Pits 2 and 3. The remaining 3 members on bikes of Team Tutu Much set out, while I waited for Ron and eventual transport to Duck Key.

I am thrilled to report that Ron O made it to Pit 4 -- which I think was at the 78 mile mark. Tom and Kathy made it all 100 miles -- and as luck would have it, Ron, Ron and I were at the entrance to "camp" and watched them ride in!

I'm back!

It's been a little over 2 weeks since we finished the Smart Ride, ending at the White Street Pier AIDS Memorial in Key West under a beautiful blue sky. Correction: beautiful blue sky in amazingly HOT weather. Hotter than we expected. Hotter than is normal. Which was followed by 3 days of wind gusts ranging from 10-35mph and temperatures below normal. So much for my plan of lounging by the pool!

The bikes all arrived in Miami courtesy of Jackie & Liz, PhD Transport and were taken to "bike parking." Visors were distributed to the ride support team (Jackie, Liz, Mac, John, Linda, Mary and David (who also served as a volunteer massage therapist on the ride). The visors matched our costumes. See picture above - from left to right: Ron W., Kathy, Julie, Tom, and Ron O.

Heading South

Last week and this week has been filled with visits to the gym, and finishing the rainbow tutus. And the visors for the non riders. Hehehe Wait until you see the pictures after the ride!

Our bikes are now in Florida, compliments of Jackie & Liz transporters. They called with every state line they crossed. :-) They are spending some time visiting friends and touring around. Yesterday they went on a boat to see the manatees - mom said there were so many of them and she was able to pet them! She decided against swimming with them as the water was cold and she'd need a wetsuit.

We fly to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow (Wednesday 11/12) where we'll spend the night with friends. Thursday is registration and the safety video and getting our bikes to bike parking. Friday we ride...early. Saturday closing ceremonies are at 2pm. After that it's R&R! We've planned a trip to the Dry Tortugas where we can go scuba diving....hopefully the water is warm!

Send prayers, warm thoughts, good vibes and karma to us all on Friday and Saturday. Thanks for all your support!

Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday

Ok...Monday I don't think I did a darn thing. Can't remember why exactly.

Tuesday the polls opened at 7am, so we woke up and showered (Kathy) and dressed and were heading out as early as possible. The convenient thing is that our polling place is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. And at 6:30am the phone rang. It was my mom, already in line with Liz her housemate. Seems Liz needed a potty. And we were just across the street. And awake. :-)

We got in line around 6:40am and were done with the lines and the voting by 7:45am. I drove Kathy to the metro and headed straight to the gym. Normally I listen to my book on tape/cd, but this morning I was enthralled by CNN.

I must say that I felt this was an historic year. I was able to cast my first vote for a woman for President in a primary election, and my first vote for an African-American in the general election. I thought Sen. McCain was eloquent in his concession speech and that Sen. Obama was inspirational. Let's hope that we can all unite behind the President-elect and move forward as a nation.

Wednesday was back to the gym as usual. Still watching CNN and hoping that North Carolina would swing the way I hope. :-)

If you voted -- thank you. If you didn't, you'd better have a good reason!

Sunday (I'm behind)

So...Sunday Kathy asked several times if we were going to ride. That should have been my warning that she really wasn't into the riding thing. It was cold, after all. But I said "sure" so we dressed and hydrated and ate and hauled the bikes up from the basement.

I think we made it MAYBE 1/2 a mile before Kathy, the lead, stopped to ask what the plan was. Hey, my thighs were absolutely frozen. I'd gone out to take recycling out wearing a t-shirt and thought it was fine even though it was 58 degrees. That's 58 degrees without you biking 20+ (I'm ambitious!) miles per hour. Kathy's fingers were frozen.

So we did a whopping 3 miles (WOOO HOOO) and wimped out. But we did load the bikes on the trainer (Thanks Greg) and each did 45 minutes.

I hate the cold. If you can call 58 degrees cold. BRRRRR

Wheeee!

Saturday we had gorgeous fall weather and temps near 70, so it was out for a bike ride! We started on our usual around the neighborhood loop, then headed out for our bigger loop. It was so beautiful we decided to go further and visited the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge. There's a great 3 mile loop in the park, and at the halfway point they had porto-potties. It's bad when you get excited about seeing a porto-pottie, and then that you rate it as a good one because they had hand sanitizer! The parking lot there is lit by solar lights -- why aren't more parking lots and streets lit by these things? We read the little sign that told all about where the parts were made and how it works. Particularly liked that the lights "turn on at dust." Really? Dust? God help people who aren't good at housecleaning if their lights turned on at dust!!

Aside from the 2 jacka_s drivers who thought it would be fun to try to run me off the road, the vehicular traffic wasn't bad. I felt really good and even commented to Kathy that "this going to the gym crap really works!" Didn't struggle up the hills as much as last week -- yeah!!!

At the end of the ride we did a short lap around the neighborhood with Kathy leading the way. Just after turning onto Greenhill, there was a squirrel in the road. I swear he was doing that car insurance commercial -- where they run in front of a car to try to make the driver wreck. Anyway, the little furry beast did the same to me, waiting until the last minute to dash in front of me. It was so funny it made me laugh...and thankfully not wreck the bike!

Total mileage -- 26 miles -- yippeee!

Yoga Break!

Friday we did not go to the gym, but Kathy and I, accompanied by Margaret the cat, did a yoga tape. Kathy refers to it as the "yoga stretch tape" but the real title is "Yoga for Weight Loss." or "Yoga to make you unflexible people feel like an idiot when attempting these poses."

Try this one: stand with your legs spread wide apart, toes pointing forward. Turn your right foot out to the right. Raise both your arms to the sides. Bend your body towards the right. Touch your right foot with your right hand. Riiiiightttt. Don't forget attempting to stay standing while trying this pose. I'm so glad we don't have a video camera!

Actually, we both felt really good after the tape. You do get some good stretching, which we definitely needed!