bonk and beautiful

start of the ride.. with tons of people!!!

so today was the firecracker group ride. with it i learned two important lessons. the first was a reminder that i hate group rides when there are more than say 5 people. its like trying to leave a nascar event after the checkered flag - you have to dodge a trillion people who are not paying attention to where they are going, they are rolling along at all different speeds and will stop suddenly for no apparent reason. blah! the crowd did thin out about 20 miles into the ride, but that first hour was brutal enough to effect the whole ride. hence my second lesson - DRINK. drink often and early. i was spending so much of my efforts to not crash that i was not comfortable to sip- and probably super tense using up energy.. ugh! i really paid for it the last 1.5 hrs of my ride as even after filling both my bottles at the last stop i was empty and hurting by the three hr mark. the 97 degree temps and humidity didnt help either, but today was one day when i had to cut my ride short and just get home. my legs were not cooperating. i had lost all of the speed and drive i had the first 2 hours. it was a bonk.

sooo after what i consider a partially good ride (due to lessons learned at at least some good miles) i think i needed to make up with something positive and since we never had spring cleaning, we had summer holiday day off cleaning. woo! makes you feel good to see your floor again, and get all the dog hair from out of the corners. we even re-arranged some furniture. yes it was a very productive after noon.

very fitting was a trip to dairy queen to reward our efforts. who knew the inside of that place was so posh.. the last time i was in a dairy queen i didnt want to stay long but was forced to as i was stuck to the booth.. anyway.. now bobby is napping on the couch, guess his ride plus his forced housekeeping tired him out.