Sweet Mother of All that is Unholy!~

Okay I just finished the Gentleman's ride, and it kicked my trash!!! Serious trash was kicked...I don't even know how to describe today's events...Woke up way too early, gather as a group...then start out and ride Millcreek Canyon...I was really focusing on being constant and steady today, you know I had a long ride and I wanted to make sure I had enough energy to finish the ride. Millcreek was good, pretty uneventful...the decent down Millcreek was great tho, even tho our friend Brian almost crashed when his pedal slipped. After easy Millcreek we head over to Big Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood is about 14 Miles long. It only has a few steep sections, then the rest is a slight uphill...but don't think it's a cake walk...I did it, and there was no cake at the top...however there were Redvines and turkey sandwiches, so it wasn't a complete waste. Seth and I rode down to the bottom together. It was fun to ride with him...we had a fast tailwind pushing us down the canyon...we were going the speed limit which is really nice because I take the whole lane when I go the speed limit...no need for cars to pass me. Two canyons down one more to go...to tell you the truth I didn't feel that terrible...I was feeling pretty good...then...duhn duhn duh....we climb to the entrance of Little Cottonwood...now let me fill you in on the spec of Little Cottonwood. It is 8 miles long, totally exposed - no shade on the road, the average grade was 8%, and it never flattens out...it is a mean canyon...even with fresh legs, it's mean. So now I begin my journey to find inner strength...quitting is not an option. Even at the entrance of the canyon I am barely turning the cranks over...I had to create head games to stay on my bike...I was going sooo slow that flys started to gather over my decomposing body and vultures were circling above me waiting patiently for me to die. At one point I pulled my bike off the road dunked my helmet in the creek...but that wasn't good enough, so I dunked my head and face in the creek...repeatedly... Then I don't remember much after that because I quickly had to go to a very dark place where I couldn't feel the pain...it was a lonely place...even lonelier when I saw all the other riders head down the canyon and knowing I still had an entire mile to go...a mile doesn't seem like much but at the end of this ride a mile took an eternity to finish. It was brutal! B-R-U-T-A-L-!-!-!- At one point I thought about crying...but realized I couldn't afford the tears since I was out of water. I was forced to pedal one stroke at a time...which is usually the case but most of the time each pedal stroke doesn't try to be the one that kills you. I can describe how demoralizing that last mile was, or I can talk about how exhausted I was, I can even talk about how I am more committed to losing the baby fat I put on...but I won't because there will be too much pain in my words and this post would lose all humor...so I will quickly jump to the end...I got to the top and quietly put my jacket on because it was raining rather hard and got out of that canyon and cranked it all the way home...because I had a BBQ waiting for me. At the end of the ride we had an AMAZING BBQ with all sorts of smoked meats, perfect guacamole - all you could eat, the most prefect fruit salad ever, baked beans, and to top it off Raspberry tart, and lemon ice. Life is definitely delicious.

Overall - I did it, and hopefully I will never have to do it again...but you guys know as well as I do, that I will do it again, and complain about it just as much.

Oh crap here we go again....

I know how many times do I have to do this...confess my training sins on my blog...listen, in my religion they don't let you confess for stuff like this...but the burden is so heavy. Okay in like seven hours I begin the Gentleman's Ride. It is a 85 mile road ride with 11K of elevation gain. I was totally looking forward to this ride...when I was training for it...which was...hmmm....when was I training? March? I don't know...a long time ago. In February I had one good week of training, then it started to snow a ton, so then I stopped riding, then the snow melted and I had to train for the fruita mnt bike race. I know what you are thinking, since I was training on my mountain bike, should'nt that cross over to road biking? I kind of thought the same thing, until earlier this week when I wiped the cobwebs off my pretty Moots road bike and took it for a spin up Millcreek canyon. Yeah no crossover. I was really slow and heavy...I am going to blame the heavy on....'water weight' I guess. You know what the sad part of all this...I am stressing over a Family Ride....that's right this ride is just with family and some friends. Totally low key and suppose to be fun...since it's with the family I can't quit. I mean I could, but I would never hear the end of it. Oh well...I do this everytime I forget to train for things and catch myself being out of shape....Fisher is like 9 months old...can I still blame him? I just had a kid? Would that work? Probably not with this bunch...I may complain...but I love this family...come on what other family makes you train for FHE? Love it. I will let you know how is goes. It should be fun...right? Yeah it will be great...I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful...I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful....

My Husband the Doctor

Seth graduated Medical School this last week...finally. He has been in school for just about ever, and I am excited that we get to move on to the next stage/chapter/phase/etc. of our lives. It's an exciting time for him, and us. I'm so proud of Seth, he has worked so hard, not only has he worked hard, but he has handled everything with such grace, dignity, and integrity. He has taken the last decade to work on becoming the man he wants to be, and I think he has been progressing quite nicely. Well done Seth, kings to you.

Fisher and his Dad Setherson....Dr. Setherson

Whoosh-Whoosh

Seth graduated this last weekend. I know, hold your applause he's a rock star. To graduate we had to go back to Kirksville MO for an extended weekend. You know they won't just mail out his diploma....sheesh. So Tuesday we made the trek to Kansas City MO, stayed with my friend Julie...who was awesome and we had a great time, then Wednesday we drove to Kirksville, which from now on will be referred to as the Ville. Just after well pulled up to the Ville our arrival was immediately trumped by the arrival of Tornado Tim...Tim put the hurt down on the Ville...

I can really remember one time in my life where I felt real fear...and that was 3 years ago when Seth and I got caught in a tornado in Unionville, MO...the force of those winds are incredible, and I hated every microsecond of it.

We were lucky this last week tho we were on the opposite side of town from where it hit, so we just got wind and a ton of rain. There were a few neighborhoods that were affected...and when I say affected, I mean there house blew down, or their roof blew off. Upon hearing this Seth went to help those neighborhoods with whatever they needed...but to tell you the truth I hated that he had to go...It was the worst feeling separating the family in such a unpredictable time. As for the damage in the Ville, it could have been far worse than what is was...I still think a lot of people were being protected and watched over. Overall - I am so glad I am not going back to the Ville, so glad....

Mothers Day

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Monterrey Jack Stuffed Shrimp

Oopps!!!

18 Hours of Fruita

THE PLAYERS

Wow where do I begin...there's a lot to cover on a 18 hour race. Lets start with The Team;

Ivy & Kitty - The Power Couple/Power House....these two are cut from a different fabric, if I had to name the fabric it would probably be a mix between lycra, gortex, and something far more extreme. I swear these guys don't feel pain or show weakness.

Seth & Eugie - Seth's focused, determined and gets the job done without complaining. Eugie shows up, complains, kind of gets the job done and has a great time doing it. We are good together tho, mainly because Seth steps up his game to cover me. Gotta love him!

The Race: 18 hours mountain bike race. The course is a fun 6 mile zippy trail, fast, lots of turns, mainly single track and never did anyone ride the same trail twice.

Objective: To ride the most number of laps possible in 18 hours.

Our Plan: Win, well maybe not win-win...

The race started at midnight with a mass Le Maun start...which is weird...everyone set up their bikes near the entrance to the trail, then the racers were about 100 meters from their bikes then they do a running start to their bike...it was kind of a odd start, so we had Ivy do the start, and he was the perfect player for the job, out of 90 racers he was like the 5th on the trail...

Ivy and Seth took care of the 1st 4 hours of racing while Kitty and I tried to sleep...but I couldn't sleep because our camp was next to the timing station, which should not have been all that bad except they had three 15 year old boys DJ'ing the party....the music was crazy loud , and they blared music until 2am!!!! There was no rest. My first lap started around 3:30am...I got ready to go, and my bike battery dies before I even got on the course...seriously...I didn't even get a solid 30 seconds out of my light, so in a panic I went back to camp and woke everyone up to get a new bike light...all we had was a handle bar light...which was fine if the course was straight, but this course had a ton of turns!!! So on the course I was guessing half the time where things were. Hahaha , I just rode behind people with good lights, so I could see in front of them. I did 2 laps, then Kitty did 2 laps, I did 2 more, then Kitty did 2 more. Now everyone is awake and we decided we would be faster if everyone just does one lap each time, bust 'em out ninja style. By then we saw that we were in 2nd place...very exciting...at that point I think we were 11 minutes behind 1st place...kind of my fault because of the light problem...so we focus on trying to keep 2nd place.

About 4 more laps pass and we were bumped down to 3rd place. The fight was on, we kept our heads down and really started to turn on the heat, everyone on the team was coming out with great times on their laps. Ivy and Seth were definitely our powerhouse, they were consistent and strong, they rode well in all sorts of conditions....I give them both 5 gold stars.

Everything was going really smooth, and we barely bumped up to 2nd place. Then I over heard friends of the 3rd place team talking about how they were going to stop racing their female to catch us...which is legal...but shady. That fired us up even more. We raced for a few more hours and we are doing well...then I think we had about 2 more hours of racing left when Ivy found out we were TWO seconds from first place....yeah we were making up crazy amounts of time...we didn't even bother checking that earlier because we were so far behind them...well upon further investigation it looked like we actually pulled ahead 4 minutes on first place...we were solid 1st. Then the heavens opened up and it poured rain on the trail...and poor Kitty had the worst ride of her life, it had nothing to do with her, she is an excellent biker, she just had the worst trail to ride on...the trail became one big mud puddle...her bike was stuck solid in the mud. It would not roll...it was then too heavy to carry, she couldn't walk up the hill because it was too muddy. It was a muddy hell for her. People were aborting the course anyway they could. Unfortunately Kitty was completely isolated from help. We found out she was stuck about 40 minutes after she was stuck...and then we made some mistakes on the tactical side of things...I won't go into to details...but we were listening and trusting race officials....and we should have just done our own thing....oh well poor Kitty had the WORST luck on being out there at that time with that rain and mud. Her poor bike was just a mess...there were other people on the trail who were breaking derailers and chains being out there in the mud. Well...because of mother natures nastiness....we then lost the 4 minute lead and their team put 3 minutes on us and then Ivy was the last one to go out and he rode like an animal and made up about 2 minutes and 40 seconds on this guy...so the final outcome...we lost 1st place by 20 seconds....even thought we lost...we totally spanked 1st pace team....we came out of no where, and had them freaking out. I'm super happy we got 2nd place...I was really surprised, from our team only Ivy had endurance mountain biking experience...and Kitty has never raced mountain bikes...I'm really proud of our team...they are a bunch a bad aces.

Overall: I had a great time! It was so much fun, like real fun...I was just happy while I was riding. I learned a lot, things to do, other things not to do, but it was great. I also like the team aspect, it was nice racing with Seth. The most important this is now with all those extra calories burned I get to enjoy a Lady's Brunch Burger...if you can't tell from the above picture, that is a hamburger between two Krispie Kream donuts, topped with a fried egg and two strips of bacon....come to think of it, maybe I should wait on this until I do an Ironman....and then maybe I will break even with calories.