What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

68 mile ride, 3800 ft of elevation gain, 3800 ft elevation descending
You can find ride details here, just click on show elevation on the left hand side to see all the climbs
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/or/troutdale/517395668258

I’m tired; it’s been a long day so I’m just to bullet point some recaps and a few things on my mind.

• Performance Bicycle may have good prices on accessories and gear but I will NEVER let them touch my Cadence (bike) again. I took it in on Thursday to have the rear break pads replaced and the guy didn’t put the right side on tight. 2-3 miles into the ride I hear this loud squeaking and try to break and realize my rear breaks weren’t working. Thankfully my front were ; ) I stopped to check it out and WTF? The break pad was turned backwards and about to fall off. Thankfully Jenny stopped to see if I was ok and let me use her multi purpose tool to fix it. It’s good to have working breaks.
• When I was scared I started singing. Weird I know. The song of the day was “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when sky’s are grey.” Dadadadaa….you know something like that. This helped calmed my nerves. Funny thing was, 2 out of the 3 times I started singing that song it started raining, WTF?
• You will always remember who stops to help you or waits for you on the descends and you will always remember those who just pass by when you are in need of help without a second thought. I think there are some that forget we are a team. I will never pass by someone who appears to have trouble with their bike without asking if they need help….never have never will.
• Today my quads burned and they yelled at me, on more then one occasion.
• I started eating a little too late on the ride, yet I still managed not to bonk. The hills made it difficult to time my nutrition. I often had to eat while climbing. I hit the Maloox twice and vitamin IB for pain my right calf….left over pain from running, nothing serious, no worries. Both remedies did the trick and my leg felt a-ok 20 minutes later and Maloox kept the acid reflux away for this ride.
• At the half way point I was a lot more tired then I thought I’d be. We had done a lot of climbing up to this point….and still had a lot to go. This was a time that I questioned myself….”Did I have it in me?” Turns out I did. There were a few climbs on the way back that hurt, really, really bad. My friend Shannon had sent me a picture of Natasha (our honored team mate, a little girl fighting leukemia), she was in her bed (post transfusion) with bags of medicine getting fed through her. The only time she is not suffering is when she is has her morphine (no fun!) or asleep. I can only imagine the pain she suffers through on a daily basis. This gave me strength to suck up my fear/ pain.
• Luna Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars are soooo good, one of my new found favorites.
• My ride lasted 5 hours and 20 minutes. I climbed and descended over 3800 feet. It was wet and rained a little. I burned 2600 calories total and consumed 600 during the ride, I still lost 1.4lbs after plenty of hydration and recovery food.
• I don’t understand the words “I Can’t.” I am soooo tired of hearing people’s excuses as to why they can’t do something. If I believed in the phase “I Can’t” I’d still be a maid in a slum lord hotel….probably with children and a drug addiction. If you evenr want to hear a story of hell and back you can ask me….I don’t believe in “I Can’t.” Where there is a will there is a way….and I will never feel sorry or have much respect for those that give up.
• One would think that after that type of ride a Spanish coffee would light you up! The weird thing was I never felt it…. : (
• I learned how to tackle my fear of descending, to get so damn fatigued you just don’t give a shit. One the way back quads were yelling at me, and my back was moaning (my body talks a little too much, kind of like myself, neither of us know when to STFU). Anywho, I hurt and I was relieved to see descents. Did I just say that? I think I did. I was so happy to not have to fight gravity to go up a freaking hill I just shifted my body down and went into them. Now that’s not to say I didn’t break, I still had to do that a bit but for the most part I took every descent back faster and more aggressive. I was even able to cut corners ; ) My daddy gave me a little advice on Thursday that worked well. Plus in the back of my mind I new I had someone up above looking out for me, I was and always will be ok, I just need to keep reminding myself that.
• It’s really annoying to be past by almost every person on the descents. It is a very good feeling to pass all those same people from the descents ascending. I’m a pretty strong climber.
• I enjoyed this ride; some of the hills were long, but never too long. Some of the roads were curvy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It rained a little, I got wet; a little water doesn’t hurt anyone.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.