Too busy to blog!

I have been on fast forward here lately and haven't taken time to update my blog.

Spring time is traditionally a very busy time at work, its no different this year, thank goodness. If I could only come up with a semi warm body to fill a broker position, I'd be golden. Semi warm, that's not asking for too much, is it??? You would think so by the job applications and resumes I have been receiving.

A few weeks ago, Clark took me on a get away to Orlando, FL. I haven't been to the Disney area since the 70's when we took a family vacation there.

We had a tremendous, fun time! There is a GREAT bicycle shop there, Orange Cycle, that Fred told us about, so we hit that Saturday morning before the Braves spring training game. OMG, it blows our lil Cycle World out of the water!! Granted, Orlando is a much larger city, but night and day, better then any bike shop I have ever been in, better then any I have visited in Atlanta. They recognize that women ride bikes too and had a huge selection of women's clothes! I was VERY good and only came away with what I actually needed, a pair of shorts and some arm warmers.

They also had in stock the new Sport Beans from Jelly Belly... YUMMY! I shot back a few of those before I raced in Perry on Sunday.

Sunday's bike race was called the Perry-Roubaix, in Perry, GA, not Paris, France!

It was billed as the Hell of the South bike race, so I was a little apprehensive to enter, but figured since it was only 25 miles (that's 12 miles shorter then the one I did here in Albany), I'd be ok. Plus, I have been riding a lot. The kicker was, the ride mimiced the cobblestones of France with south Georgia pavers, i.e. dirt road sections.

Weaver, being the pro he is, scouted the race route out earlier in the week, so we knew the conditions of the road, where it was soft, where there was a big pothole, etc. The weather cooperated on Sunday and the winds were not nearly as brisk as they were the previous day.

Bike racing seems to be a man-dominated sport, at least here in our area. I wound up racing with the Cat 4 women (in Albany, they had a Cat 5 women) and there were probalby 11 or 12 of us. We started out the race together, then climbed two major hills, went a lil ways more, then turned onto the dirt section.

On the dirt, I was huffing and puffing, trying not to throw up. Those hills kicked my ass. I fell off the peloton & considered stopping after one lap (the route was 12.5 miles, so I had to do it twice).

There was another girl who fell off the peloton, I heard her heavy breathing on the climbs and noticed she really didn't know about the gears on her bike.

I caught her and said "Let's work together!".. She was agreeable, this was her first race and she told me, "Just tell me what to do!"...

So we took short pulls and on the last lap, we were caught by the Cat 4 peloton men. That was heaven! We actually screwed up and got tangled up in the peloton. One of the guys from our team told me we needed to get out of the peloton (DOH!! Beginner mistake!) since that could change their outcome.

She and I pulled out, but it WAS ok to stay on the back of the group, so we drafted them til the turn for the final sprint. At that point, she and I agreed to sprint for the line. I was out front, thinking, man, she's riding my wheel, she's going to beat me to the line, so I got in my drops and stretched out on my new Terry Damselfly saddle. I can really stretch out on it and get on it in the sprint. I pulled away from her and beat her to the line!

Success!! No gold medal this time, but I wasn't last AND I didn't crash. You can't win every race you enter and there are a lot of people who wouldn't even enter a race, so I felt great to have done it.

I felt even better after we got home, cleaned up and went to eat dinner and the waitress brought me a big ass 22 oz. beer.