Countdown to Triathlon – 121 Days, 17.2 weeks to Race Day (See Installment 92 of "The Journey", 220 mile bike ride, below)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY – Babies are such a nice way to start people.
Don Herrold

I have the night shift tonight.  It's 3:27 am and the baby is sleeping.  I have been rocking him and burping him and changing multiple diapers so that my daughter Laurel can get a few hours sleep before his next feeding.  Then I'm going to bed!  I thought I would type the blog while I'm waiting.  Then it's "Good Night"!

The Journey - Installment Ninety-Two

Somewhere during the morning ride, I realized that no one was in sight and that I was riding alone.   This was not because I rode so fast and was ahead of everyone.  I probably was the last rider again.  I began to feel sorry for myself.  I was wearing the “No Whining” button, given to me by my Jewish customer from my drapery business.  I think I temporarily forgot about that button because I remember whining to the Lord that I was riding all alone and no one wanted to ride with me. I was having a one-woman pity party.  As it became lunch time I began to look for signs of where our lunch break was going to be held but could not find the trail that was marked along side of the road.  Maybe they should have left crumbs out for me to follow.  As I got to Calistoga, I saw up ahead on the sidewalk some of the volunteers who were wearing the very distinct goldenrod color tee shirts.  I headed toward them, up on the sidewalk and came to a screeching halt beside them.  As I began asking them where we were meeting, I began to swing my leg over the bike to dismount.  Distracted by my conversation with them, over I went.  I had forgotten to unclick my right foot from the pedal.  Not only did I fall over right at their feet and make a grand entrance, but I fell on the metal doors which cover stairs going down to the basement of a store which is used for delivering supplies to the store.  As I lay there I realized very quickly that the metal was hot in the noonday sun and it was burning me.  I began hollering at the men to get the bike off me and my feet out of the pedals.  Falling wasn’t bad enough without getting burned at the same time.  Leave it to me to be such a klutz.  

          

         I was really shaken up by the fall.  I don’t know why it affected me so severely.  I had fallen many times before because of not clicking out of my pedals. One of the men asked me if I wanted him to push my bike and I told him to “please do it.”  I was shaking all over.  We walked around the corner and down the block and there was the black Focus van with all the riders getting fed their lunch.  I watched what the others were eating and decided to do the same.  After lunch I asked one of the mechanics to look at my bike because it had been making a “rubbing” sound.   They checked it out and could find nothing wrong.  With lunch ended, we started back toward the hotel.