Weekend wrap up

Yesterday I got up early and went on my saturday morning ride. Coach had scheduled me a group ride, with some harder efforts; so I went to my local tri store to join in the "women" only ride. The other ride they have on saturday mornings is way too fast for me to keep up.

When I get there I find out that the regular ride leader broker her ankle during the week on a trail run, so we will have a "sub". As the sub is pumping her tires, she gets a flat... on her back wheel! Now, put a whole bunch of ladies; with absolutely no tire changing experience in a situation like this and what do you get? A ride leader who is panic mode because she can't change her tire; and the rest of us on a panic mode because, what if we get a flat? I am proud to report that even though I had no tire changing experience myself, I was able to help put the back wheel in place. I guess all the watching other people do it paid of. 

As we are getting ready leave to the parking lot, I notice a new girl (who I shall call A). A is not sure she can go the entire 26 miles we have planned going (which turned out to be more like 23); as the most she has ridden was 9 miles. I assure her she will be fine, she will be sore but will do just fine. People start pedaling away and as A is trying to get going, she can't clip her second foot and falls off the bike. At this point, you could see the tears start welling in her eyes and she says to me " I am really scared of this ride". I tell her she shouldn't be and that we have all fallen of our bikes... Hey, I did last weekend! I show her some tricks on how to clip in and out (like being able to push your pedal even though you are not clipped, so that you have more momentum) and I vow to stay back with her for the duration of the ride. 

I remember my first group ride and how my heart was literally jumping off my chest. I wish someone had taken the time to show me things. I had no such luck. What I learned about biking I learned alone on trial and error. I fell of my bike numerous times and each time I got up and kept riding.

So anyhow, off we go. I stay back with A and tell her about cadence and being effective on your pedal strokes and how not to be scared of shifting. She is riding her granny ring and I make her change to the small ring. Once there I tell her we will work on getting comfortable with shifting around the gears in her cassette. She asks me questions, and I answer them to the best of my knowledge. I share experiences and keep assuring her she will be fine. I finally convince her she will be able to go the entire distance and we keep riding past her much shorter turn around point. Every now and then the group leader comes to find us and I take this time to push out of my comfort zone. I ride the big ring, feel the burn in my legs and and eat it up. I am loving this ride. 

We get to the turnaround point and A is looking awesome. We all tell her "it's all downhill from here" (in a figurative way). The group stays much closer now, I guess people are starting to get tired; and I just want to GO. I ask A if she is feeling good, and tell her my intentions, she says to go for it. So I take off. For the first time I am leading the group and feeling good about going fast. I practice my eating strategies, drinking (tried Heed and loved it! Thanks Katie!) and staying Aero.

We get back to the shop and I have this overall good feeling. My ride went awesome and I am also super glad I was able to help someone out. I tell A she needs to keep coming to the group rides. That she will get better and faster each time. She is looking a lot more confident now. Mission accomplished.

After the ride I went home and showered quickly to get ready for my dress shopping morning. I went out and hit a bunch of stores and could not come up with anything I liked. I had done some online shopping and saw a bunch of dresses I liked but the always look so much better in pictures. I came back home empty handed. 

I did, however, go to the hair salon and got my hair colored. I think I look much better with dark color hair. I will try to take a picture and post it later. 

Oh yes! I have some Megan news. She is turning into such a big girl! Friday night was her first night sleeping without a pull up and she did awesome! She did not wet her bed. She repeated that saturday night. We leave the bathroom light on, so she can go if she needs to during the night. And she has used it! Yesterday we took her to the pool and she has embraced swimming! This is a total shocker for us since last summer she did not want to have ANYTHING to do with the water. Granted, she is still not going under, but now she wants to swim without us holding her (don't worry we are still in the pool next to her, and she wears those arm floating thingies).

Today we are going to my sister in law's house to celebrate her birthday and help out with some home projects. She and her husband have just moved into town and since she is pregnant her hubby has been enlisting family help to do fix the little things the house needs. We have given them all of our baby stuff... furniture, toys.. you name it. Our old "nursery" will become our home gym and we are pretty excited about it.

Today is IMcda. I send big waves of good luck and positive thoughts to all those racing. Also a big Congrats to Bree who came in 2nd in IM Japan on her first IM as a pro. Go Bree!!!!