Mar 27 - oh oh

I was just doing some curiosity googling and reading about the Shenandoah 1200 that runs in early June and I found that they can accommodate 100 riders and they are nowhere near full. Oh oh. It's making me sweat just thinking about it -- but that also might be the hot soup that I'm drinking at the moment.

I see Hamid registered and Allan and Rita ... only their names are actually Alain Abbate & Viktoriya Shundrovskaya -- whew. I had gleaned from an email from Hamid referring to Alain & Vita that I mis-heard him, and I assumed that he had spelled Alain's name wrong -- wrong.

There are only 33 people registered. It's run June 11-14. Last year the drop-out/DNF rate was 50% ... even among those who had completed a PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris.

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It's 1:50 pm.

It's preying on my mind, that 1200k. I have not mentioned it to Sandy though ...

I've been trimming -- cutting out some of the Brazilian Pepper invasive species growth in our back yard. I've completely opened up the area behind the clothes line; you can actually see the palms. The Marine Discovery Center has a program going whereby they come and eradicate the stuff -- cutting and injecting something into the root of the plant. They're trying to get it under control ... good luck ... it's everywhere.

At the point I have a huge pile of yard trash / cuttings out by the road. Thankfully they come weekly to pick up same.

I went to Home Depot for the first time in a long time, picking up some of their terry rags that I like so much for bike cleaning, some ant treatment granules, chain lube for the electric chainsaw that I used on the Brazilian Pepper and a large pair of two handed ratcheting cutters that will provide more leverage than the one-hand snipper for working on the Pepper and other rampant growth.

We did not go boating, with rain on the doppler, but none has fallen yet. There's a big line of thunderstorms headed our way though. It's also very windy, so boating wouldn't have been as much fun for us, although I'm sure Abby wouldn't have noticed.

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It's 2:35 pm. I talked to Sandy about the Shenandoah, telling her that I have an "alternate" plan, rather than doing more scheduled brevets in Canada and taking up too many weekends. We'd go down to Jeffrey's and I'd head off to Leesburg; she would stay in the area, visit with friends, go into New York etc.

My head hurts thinking about it since I have not even completed a 600k yet ... There are only a handful of people in the country who did two 1200's last year, based on my looking at the results, perhaps you could count them on one hand. Would the pain from the first still be too fresh in my mind as I start the second, assuming, that is, that I finish the first ?!?!

Somehow I was comfortable with August, it being soooo long off. Mid June is a lot closer -- it's looming ... arghhh. I have to shed some weight -- from the hummer that is -- there's 40,000 feet of climbing on the Shenandoah.

This is bizarre.

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It's morning again. I've pretty well decided that I will sign up for the Shenandoah. I have a question into them via email on qualifying rides. That's my excuse for not just sending off the application ... why, oh why, am I even thinking about this.

It's windy out there today. Usually it's fairly calm before sunup but I can see the trees blowing in the early morning light. There's nothing much on today -- for me -- so I may go out for a short, eg. 50 mile, ride. Bev & Bruce and Carol & Allister will be arriving mid afternoon so I cannot be out there too long, not that anyone would be surprised to find me out on the bike.

Tonight the computer will be shut down because Sheryl will be sleeping in the den on the pull-out couch. I'll be laptopping it for a couple of days in the early a.m. That's ok -- that's why we set this room up as we did. I get excellent reception 20 feet away in the living room !

Sandy will be busy in the kitchen today -- not that she needs to, but she needs to, if you know what I mean. I always think that she goes overboard in prep, that people love our everyday, simple cooking, but she enjoys the prep, fussing over menus, making special recipes, deserts ... mmmm ... and no one complains.

We heard from Jeffrey yesterday, who was in Maryland dropping off Emma with Sara's mom. Sara and Jeffrey will then head back to Exton to pack (they haven't packed yet !) and move tomorrow. That seems impossible to me, but since I'm not there to stress over it, more power to them. What they need to do is tip their current townhouse on its side and dump the contents into a truck ... the only good news is that they are moving into more space. I think that they are also planning on giving up their storage unit where some of Jeffrey's furniture is stored. That will a) save them money and b) help to fill up the new house. Will they be organized by the time that we get there ? Probably not -- but it's hard when you're working full time, have an almost-2-year-old, etc.

We also heard from Angela Goodchild. She's had a semi-promotion (more responsibility, same pay). The same pay (actually I think that there might have been reductions in pay but I'm not sure) thing grates on her as it would on anyone, but she then looks at her sister who has lost her job and realizes that she's lucky. Her eldest, Evan, is graduating from Carlton University this year but expects to take and year off and then go back. I think that Angela mentioned Law, but I may be wrong. Their younger child, Meredith, is just finishing her first year at UBC. They'll both be "home" during the summer -- I put home in quotation marks because I think that Meredith will be staying in their chalet in Collingwood where she has a summer job, vs the west end of Toronto where they live. Russ has not been traveling with his job lately -- used to be 3 out of 4 weeks -- but with cutbacks somehow the job manages to get accomplished without travel. I don't know how much Angela travels, probably not much.

It was good to talk to her -- not having seen nor heard from her since we had the reunion party last summer.

That's about it ... I just heard Sheryl up. The indication that Sheryl is up is the sound of the sliding door. Ahem, she still smokes. Ah well, we each choose to be cruel to our body in different ways ! That's her method of torture, I have mine !

I did some bike maintenance yesterday. All that pounding on that rough road throws things out of kilter. My front brake had twisted a little, the right hand shift/brake lever had moved down a little, the chain was incredibly dirty etc. I have not been washing the bike lately, preferring to use WD40 to do the cleaning. With continual spraying of WD40 the dirt floats right out of the chain and drips onto the cardboard on the floor below. The chain gets sparkling clean and then I lube it once the WD40 dries. A little WD40 on a rag is also good for wiping off road grime and grease from elsewhere on the frame and parts. I'll have to check my chain length ... see if it's time for a change. The chain stretches with use and if you leave it too long then it in turn wears the crankset and cassette gears. I'm sure that I've written about this before. I'm really going through the consumables ...

Speaking of consumables, I just ordered another two pairs of shorts. The chamois wears down / compresses in them after a while. I have not purchased any shorts since I did the ride across the country. Perhaps it's time for a little more padding ... I toyed with the idea of trying out some other shorts but am leery of doing anything like that on one of these rides. A different fitting short could really make things dicey. There's a lot that I can fix during a ride, but a saddle sore is not one of them !

Ok, that's really it ...