1906M YTD. "The Cowboy Century".

The Cowboy Century.

I must be doing pretty well as I have almost 2000 miles for the season so far. Feeling pretty good, lately-which is just plain awesome!

Last night I gave a talk on Motivation and Nutritional Advice While Cycling. Another coach gave a talk on Physiology. This was at the Denver REI. We had expected there to be about 50 people. Well, were we ever wrong! 150 people showed up. Crazy! We ran out of everything. Had to tell people we would list the handouts on the websites.

Thanks to support from Clif Bar (they sent me Clif Bars and Clif Bloks to hand out) we were able to keep people pretty happy as we had to start a bit later than expected to wait for everyone to get there.

The talks went off great! People were very happy and were able to learn a lot. So many people came up after the talk to ask more questions. It lasted for 3 hours. Just great!

One women said she really liked my talk and would I be interested in giving a talk to a foundation she was part of. I said sure, what foundation, when, what topic, blah blah blah... She asked if she could contact me today. I said, absolutely!

I got the call this morning. The women, as it turns out, is the Executive Director of the American Transplant Foundation. )Headquarters are in Denver). Their guest speaker backed out unexpectedly for a foundation talk and everything for the event was on hold- that is until she met me...

I'm going to be the guest speaker at the event in May for a group of transplant folks. She's trying to get them motivated to "go on" with their lives and be active and get into cycling. Wants to get a club going for them and the foundation. They are making up posters and everything for the event-with my name and website on it. Also postings on the web site and fliers. How cool is this?

Wow, funny how life takes us down many paths.

So, today I didn't have any work-well, had to be on the computer and phone this morning for a few hours but no gym work. I thought, what a perfect opportunity to do another century. (my 4th this season/year).

Have to say, though, it was a very weird day. Finally (after gazillion work calls this AM) got started at 11:15 or so. (Was planning for 9 AM). Started the ride at Performance (Got a receipt, proof of when I started my ride) . Then went out east and back into Boulder to pick up Steve.

Only got in 16 miles that first hour as I hit, absolutely every single red light along my route. It was crazy-never have I been stopped at so many red lights.

Steve and I headed out to Lyons, then he remembered he had to work earlier than planned. So, he rode back to Boulder and I continued on my merry way to get in my 100.
I was solo for the rest of the 70+ miles. Did the Fruit Loops, got a receipt in Lyons, went out towards Carter Lake, but on CR 21-my new favorite smooth road.
Then north to the road we usually take to Carter.
Still not enough miles to head back to Boulder. Went back towards Hygiene, back to Lyons (another receipt) back towards Hygiene, and back out like I was going to Carter Lake again.
This time I stayed on the road I had previously already been on earlier and I did what I call the Big Box Loop (needed the 13 miles).

Then, back into Hygiene to pick up another receipt, back towards Boulder on 75th, (got a flat, which took about 15 minutes to fix, b/c I had a hard time getting the huge thorn out from the inside of the tire, and back in zigzagging my way back to Performance for my finish (another receipt).


Finished with 101.08. Time was 5:35 and I think 45 min more for total stops, food buying jaunts, photo ops, and such. (ran out of Clif stuff-one can only carry so much).

I'm calling it my "Cowboy Century".

So many things were telling me not to do the ride-except, that is, my head. I was determined, to say the least. Even if it was hard to get out the door this morning. Had to stay determined.

Even made it home in time to hike with my Girls. (dogs)