A preview of things to come

Just to get us in the Christmas mood, we got a light dusting of snow this morning. Dare we try to tackle door buster sales and snow???





Milo checking out the snow.



We decided to "go for it" and made the door buster sales. The snow shower didn't last very long and it's mostly gone now.

Training in the basement

Well, I did it, I signed up to be a member of the Team Dayton Race Team. This means now I've got to get my A$$ in gear and spend some "quality time" on the trainer in the basement.

So, to make riding the trainer a little more bearable, Pops and I put together a compilation CD of my favorite songs that would match the training program that I'm currently following. I've got "heart pumping" songs (for warm-up and hammering) and slow songs (for recovery and cool-down) all arranged by song style and length according to the training plan. (It's a very eclectic collection- to say the least)

After yesterdays "maiden voyage" using my new CD, I can actually say that I feel like I had a great workout - probably the best ever!

Usually, when I'm riding the trainer, the minutes just drag on... and on.... and on... and I can never remember what time I'm suppose to start and stop my training segments. (I guess I can't ride and do math in my head at the same time.) But now, instead of watching the clock and calculating when to push and when to recover, I know what to do by which song is playing. The time flew by and there was no question in my mind if I had spent the right amount of time pushing versus recovering!

I think I'll probably need to make a couple more of these CDs so I don't get to sick of this one, and maybe I'll get somewhere this winter.

Turning to..."Dust in the Wind"

After several days of yucky weather, we had a "good weather window" this afternoon. It had rained all day yesterday, and more is coming tonight, so when a window of opportunity opens, ya just gotta leap through it!

Now, when I say "good weather", I mean not raining (partly cloudy), and not freezing (in the 60s), but it was "oh my God" windy! Todays wind was from the southwest- sustained at 15mph, with gusts of 25mph. This made riding out (north) great-- but coming back (south) well... I'll go with "challenging". So, after spending 2 hours riding in the wind, my face and eyes feel so dry they will probably just turn to dust by morning. And, I'm afraid to look in the mirror for fear of seeing the crypt-keeper looking back at me. Yikes!!! But, I have to say, it was still great to be on my bike OUTSIDE!!

I think we are supposed to have more bad weather for the next several days, so it'll be back to basement for me - but that's okay- my new "boyfriend" Chris Carmichael and I already have a couple of workouts planned for me to do next week.

It's time to pay the piper...

With all of the beautiful weekends we've been enjoying lately, I knew the day would come to pay-up. So this morning, when we actually heard the "S" word mentioned in the weather report, I knew our time was up. Yep, they actually said we had a chance of Snow Showers! Good grief! I don't expect we'll see anything sticking, but I'm sure that's not too far in the future. It looks like it'll be back to the basement for the next 4 months for me.

And while I'm complaining- can I just say that I'm sick and tired of changing the clocks back and forth. Can we just pick a time and stick with it? Holy crap! Enough all ready! Although "falling back" is easier than "springing forward" - it is still stupid! Here's an idea, why don't we just split the difference. We could set the clocks ahead 1/2 hour next spring and then leave them alone!!! I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with this dandy little idea... Any takers?

Okay- enough whining for today... the basement awaits!