Mar 11 - more thoughts

I always self-analyze after these things ...

It's hard to know how long I could have stayed with the lead group yesterday. I think most if not all of the day but there was enough cross wind at times that I probably would have struggled. I can keep up with that group on the hills ... but there weren't enough hills :).

Jerry did very well considering that this was his first week back on the bike since the fall. The prep was as good as it gets, the four rides. Perhaps 200k at the beginning of the week followed by the two 70/80 rides ? Who knows.

Hamid thought that he'd done the ride in 16+ hours last year but I checked the results on the RUSA site and in fact he didn't do the ride last year. The prior year he finished in 20.something. My prior results were 17:45, 19:10 and 18:20 in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively. With 17:25 this year, that's my best yet but I remember the 2009 ride -- I was alone -- so from that standpoint, this year didn't quite measure up. The terrain stays the same, everything else changes :). I remember being quite disappointed the second year with the 19:10 time -- psychologically -- because I didn't finish the same day.

Jerry set out around 9am this morning, looking a little worse for wear but not too bad. He'll be "twitchy" sitting in the car all day! I had a nap at one point. Lisa stopped by so that I could setup her laptop -- she's going to be here looking after Abby while we're gone. I went to Publix to pick up some groceries ... watched some TV, which I'm doing now ... the day is almost done.

-----

It's morning again. We had shrimp for dinner with rice and zucchini. Abby isn't going to be happy with us when we pack up and leave. She figures that when suitcases are involved, so is she !

The wind is finally dying down. The satellite dish has been disturbed so I'll have to do some minor twiddling up there when we return. Hopefully it's not too hard for Lisa and Ivan to watch TV while we're gone.

We are going to have lunch with Christie in Apollo Beach on the way to visiting with Nancy and Ron. I'm half-way tempted to bring a bicycle ... that island would be a good place to take a cruise ... however we were planning on bringing the sedan vs the SUV.

That's about it ... Onward !