The 2009 race season has begun!

Sunday's indoor Time Trial was the first race of my 2009 season. I had set myself a goal of completing the course in under 23 minutes, so now I'm a little disappointed because that I did not make it. I ended up with a time of 24:49.7.

I was afraid that time would secure my spot in last place, but actually, I beat a guy (2 guys if you count the one that DNF'ed). I did push a peak watts of 225- but my ave watts ended up at only 126 (in contrast, Pops pushed a peak watts of 452 with an ave of 284- he's a machine!).

My race strategy was simple; use my middle chain ring to crank a high cadence and hold my heart rate at about 5 beats above threshold until the climbs, shift to big ring and stand on the climbs allowing heart rate to go as high as max, return to middle ring and recover (back to threshold +5) on the downhills, repeat as necessary. I was able to do this only through the first climb- as I could not get my heart rate back to threshold +5, which meant I could not manage to stand up on the subsequent climbs, which meant my "strategy" was now "shot to hell" after the first climb. (Hum... may need to re-think that strategy for next race.) One thing that did help me throughout the race was my "tunes". Santa brought me an iPod for Christmas, so I had my collection of favorite "inspirational pedal songs" to provide encouragement.

We have 3 more races over the next several weeks, and I'm going to keep trying to beat that 23 minute mark. I guess "it's a process!"

I'm a trophy wife!

Last Saturday, Team Dayton had their annual "Award night and end-of-the-year party" so Pops and I drove down to Loveland for the event. We had a great time. The party was great with lots of food, drinks, and folks who also think talking about riding and racing bicycles is almost as fun as doing it. I also came home with a Team Dayton trophy! I won the ladies "Most Improved Time Trialist of 2008"!

Wow! I was stunned as well as honored! I guess this means that I'll have to work a little harder this year- so I can live up to that trophy...oh gosh!

Cell phone disaster!

Hello friends!

Here's todays "Pop's Tart Friendly Tip of the Day":

Don't wash your cell phone-- they don't like it...

Last Sunday, my cell phone took a ride through our washer, and needless to say, the outcome was not good. It totally killed it! I replaced the phone last week, but since it was totally dead, they were not able to retrieve any of my stored numbers. This means three things: (1)the numbers I had written down are now being re-entering by hand (2)the numbers I had only stored in my phone were totally lost and (3) I am totally bummed out that I've lost all of my numbers!

So, if you know my personal email address or cell phone number please give me a shout so I can get you back into my contact list.

Another snake!

I'm not really sure what's going on around here- but we've had several close encounters with snakes lately.

Caught this guy sunning in our yard yesterday



He's non-venomous, so after bothering him with pictures, we let him be. I'm sure our neighbors won't be very happy about that.