Sigh. I want to be funny but I suppose I just have to be honest at this point. I rode my bike 74.2 miles on Saturday and 22.4 miles on Sunday.

It all started on Friday when I mailed a bunch of Fundraising letters. I'd like to thank everyone who has donated up to this point. I am not kidding when I say that I would have quit this adventure like 12 times already if I didn't have you all backing me up. When it sucks (and it sucks often) to train, I get by thinking about all the love and support I have received. I cannot express enough gratitude for all you have given to the LAGLC and to me personally, by participating in this adventure.

So - fast forward to 3:00am Saturday. I have to clean my bike chain. It's late and I live in a "hood" of sorts, so I get this brilliant idea to clean my chain in my bathtub. I say brilliant because it worked perfectly, and also coated my entire bath in a fine and slippery layer of grease. Don't worry everyone, I use all enviro safe products.

My goal was to wake up at 6am and be on the road at 6:30am. I failed at this because 6am sucks when you're up until 4am. So I woke up at 6:30am and proceeded to rub Chamois butter all over my better half, lube my chain, throw on my sexy shorts, sunscreen and then sunscreen again, pack up some trail mix and other snacks, and get out the door, first pedal down at 7:30am.

The route was 6th st to Vermont to Olympic to La Brea to Venice to Ocean Path to Palos Verdes to PCH to eventually Huntington Beach and back - 100 miles or so.

I ended up making it to PCH and Normandie before turning back.

Highlights of the day include:

my flat tire at mile 10. I pulled over along Venice into a neighborhood full of garage sales and proceeded to successfully change my back tire. I used a CO2 Cartridge for the first time to fill up my tire and I have to say it was a true pleasure. The other true pleasure was the very very hot 30 something who walked past me and said "Do you need any help?" to which I replied in my very sexy "on I got this" voice, "No thanks, I'm almost done." to which he replied in his moderately impressed "hm, i think the look on your face like you have no idea what you're doing led me to believe you had know idea what you were doing so I'm a little shocked" voice, "okay well, I'll be back out to check on you in a minute" to which I replied in my "inside my head" voice, "that's a very odd thing to say" to which he must have heard anyway and replied in his "crap this just got weird" voice, "I have a standing pump if you need it" and then he disappeared. Two minutes later I was tightening the tire release and he came back and said "are you taking it off or putting it on" to which I replied in my "I'm disappointed I can't make a better sexual innuendo out of this" voice, "Putting it on." to which he replied, "wow." And then I rode off into the sunset alone and he went to pedal his wares to the hippies of Venice, Blvd.

the wind oh the wind. now, the wind was not so much problematic in that it was hard to pedal through it. the wind was problematic in that it was windy in LA all week and the majority (30 miles) of my ride was on a beach bike path. wind + sand = no beach bike path. Seriously, the path was completely submerged in sand in parts. Now, if you've never tried to ride a road bike through two feet of sand, you really haven't lived. It's exciting and terrifying in ways you would not believe, especially for people like me, who have terrible balance to begin with. Ergo, I walked through a lot of sand, with all the other bikers who weren't smart enough to avoid the beach this weekend. It's terrible for my bike and it's really really easy to slide out and fall. Note, however, that I didn't fall once . . . or twice . . . In fact, I didn't fall at all.

lasik. seriously. i need it. and not just because when "the big one" hits los angeles and the 15 million people take to the streets in an all out riot i wont be able to fend for myself if my glasses get lost or broken or stolen but because of wind, sand and allergens. Wind = dry, sand = scratchy and allergens = well, hell. Somewhere around mile 35 I rubbed my eye and managed to seduce my contact into falling behind my eyeball (with herbert) where it was to remain until around mile 50 . . . 15 miles on PCH with no depth perception = unhappy Criqet.

8 hours and 7 minutes later I was back at my apartment, covered in a thick glaze of sunscreen, sand, dirt, grease and the tar that is the los angeles air, but otherwise lying naked on my kitchen floor, trying to let the cool tiles calm the awesomely hot muscles all over my body, trying to dry out the blisters on my ass, trying not to move, trying to pray for the Bacon Fairy to bring me food and bathe me so I wouldn't have to get up.

I learned that after 70 miles my hands hurt - it's like an internal bruise almost, where putting pressure on those muscles and joints gets very difficult. I learned that if the last ten miles of a ride are all pot holes, you're not going to do any favors for the blisters on your ass. I learned that I LOVE Chamois Butter because the blisters on my ass could have been way worse. And - I think the most important thing that I learned was that no two things can hurt at the same time - so when the knees ache, it's a welcome reprieve from the hand pain, and when the hands hurt the ass doesn't and when the ass hurts the headache from dehydration goes away. All of this is good news. No one pain lasts very long because eventually another one comes to take it's place.

I was very unhappy at the end of this ride. I was tired and hurting and pretty lonely. Life really isn't meant to be lived alone. Accomplishments are so much more fun when you can share them with someone. I really wanted to make it the 100 miles today and I felt like a complete failure when I got home because I couldn't do it - really I ran out of time and was just so frustrated with wind and poor road quality and my body giving up that I just wanted to cry. And I did cry, a little, out of total frustration and a lot of fear as to my ability to get up and to this + another 25 miles for seven days in a row.

I slept in on Sunday because I had no motivation to get up and do this again, save the fear of failing and quitting and whatnot.

At 10:30 I rolled over and txt Sunny to see if I could ride my bike and meet her for coffee. Thank god she accepted because without a reasonable goal I wasn't going to move. So I woke up, butter'd up, and walked out the door. Instead of being a whiny loser, I made it my goal to go as fast as I could to Sunny's - and race all the red lights that pissed me off so much yesterday (SAFELY OF COURSE). I made it the 11.2 miles in 55 minutes, with headwinds the entire way. I did the same thing on the way home, except it's uphill going east and I had the wind at my back. I made it in 58 minutes. The more adrenaline I can create, the less I feel pain so this was very successful. I am very glad I got on my bike on Sunday. My butt lived. My wrists and hands compensated by riding in position three most of the way there and back to as to not put pressure on the same places I did Saturday. And my spirit was revived a bit - simply because I didn't give in to all the little voices in my head yelling reason after reason after excuse for laziness and failure. I'm confident that I can keep this up for 33 more days. If you read this blog and you hear me bitching about it at all, please slap me or something and remind me that I wanted to do something challenging with my time, that was the point and that I wanted to do something that would help other people and that I'm freaking lucky just to have legs to begin with so why would I ever complain about getting to do something so awesome with them?

Next scheduled ride is Tuesday morning at 5am - going to try and get in 30 miles before work.

Actually, technically the next ride is right now - 3 miles to the gym and then 0.5 miles to a birthday party and then 1 mile home.

With love.