Countdown to Triathlon – 214 Days, 30.5 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 42 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

We had a very busy week last week selling our car and buying a new one.  Below is a picture of Bob and I at Geweke Toyota in Lodi where we had excellent help with our purchase.  I'm giving them some free advertising here.  Buying a car is normally very repugnant to me but this company was great and made the adventure pleasant.  Bob says it's my last car but what if I am still driving in 30 years (age 96) I won't want to be driving a 30 year old car.  "96" and still driving - that's a scary thought.  LOOK OUT FOR THE LITTLE OLD LADY IN THE CORVETTE!  Yes, I think my next car will be a Corvette.  Just kidding!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -

      

If you worried about falling off the bike, you’d never get on.
~Lance Armstrong quotes (American Cyclist, b.1971)

 

 The Journey - Installment Forty-Two

(Not us.  Just wanted to show you what it looks like)

On the third day after my arrival in Honolulu, we set out with two bikes, my new water backpack full of water on my back, a  baby carrier that hitches to the bicycle, and the baby. (The correct word is not baby carrier, I just noticed on the internet - it is bike trailer.) Hollen pulled the baby and it reminded me of those people in China who pull tourists riding in carts with their bicycles.  No way I could do that.  That was my first day for clip- less pedals and the backpack.  Rather than let me get used to them for a day or so on the flat land, Hollen took me up the road by Diamond Head.  We left Waikiki behind us as we climbed an enormous hill.  I thought that I would have a heart attack and of course I was terrified of falling.  Wearing clip-less pedals in akin to having someone making your feet prisoners by tying your feet to the pedals with rope.  We got to the top of the hill and rode around the residential area where we saw many beautiful homes, AND HILLS!  At one point, I was trying to ride up a hill and going so slowly that I just fell over before I could get my feet out of the clips.

        As I lay on my back in the street, a man who had seen me fall, drove up beside me in his car and rolled down his window to ask if I was hurt.  I told him that I was okay, just a little skinned up.  Hollen unclipped my feet and pulled the bike off  from on top of me and helped me up.  The man commented that it is sure tough the first day in clip-less pedals.  He knew exactly what had happened - that I hadn't been fast enough to unclip my feet before losing my balance.    Hollen has such a sense of humor and laughs hysterically.  When he knew that I wasn’t injured other than skinned legs and arms, he commented that I looked like a turtle on its back and perhaps we should wrap tires around me like the Michelin Man.  I wasn’t amused.  But again, God provided protection because I could have been hurt badly without the water backpack, which was filled with water and broke my fall. I had never worn it before that day but then I had never worn the clip-less petals before either.

It would have been much safer and I would have had fewer bloody legs, elbows, etc. if I had been the Michelin Man.