Countdown to Triathlon – 115 Days, 16.4 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 94 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY –

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.  ~Nadine Stair

What a glorious spring day.  The flowers are a spectacular array of color.

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Six

          As we entered Novato, our route took us on a bike trail on which the vans and Bob couldn’t follow us.  We could see the freeway from the trail, and the trail meandered over a couple miles.  Remember that I had asked the Focus team to check out my bike on several occasions because it sounded like something was rubbing.  Half way down the bike trail, the noise got louder and since there was nothing I could do about it, I simply turned up the volume on my CD player.  What else is a girl to do? 

       I was within ten feet of the end of the bike trail when there was a noise so loud which sounded like a gunshot. My heart stopped for a second.  I thought someone had shot me!  It was my tire or actually my tube.  Whatever had been rubbing finally caused a blowout. It blew out sounding like a shot gun going off.  Thankfully, I was close enough to the end of the bike trail and to the street that we figured that one of the cars or vans could find us and help repair the tire.  I had a new tube in my bike pouch which Bob had purchased for me the day before in Napa.  It was a replacement for the tube which Terri had patched for me on the first night of the ride.   We thought for sure that we were the last of the riders and that the rest had arrived at the lunch stop already.  We gave the street names to the vans, but they just couldn’t find us.  They were all on the freeway and just had no idea where we were.   At that time, GPS systems were not generally in use and we were in an area with warehouses, not on a main thoroughfare.  Thank the Lord that I was not in the middle of the trail where we couldn't get help.

       I remember saying, “We can do this!”  Since we had watched Terri change a number of flats we felt confident that we also could change a tire.   My memory is foggy here as to who was with me at that time, but there were two other ladies.  Unfortunately Terri was not one of them.  We sure could have used her help.  But, we got the tire off and the tube out and the new tube taken out of the package.  Then, I did something which was really uncharacteristic for me since I am so not mechanical.  I had the bike tire in my hands and I was turning it slowing, looking for a hole.  Now as I look back, I believe that the Lord caused me to that because it wouldn’t be in my nature to even think to do that since it was evident the tube blew out.  I found a slit in the tire and asked the others if they thought it would matter if we put the new tube in with a hole in the tire because after all, the air would be in the tube, not the tire.  It sounded logical to us that it wouldn’t matter.