15 thoughts from the road

15 great things about the trip!

Day 1 – hanging out for the day with a childhood friend and meeting 39 people that would become like family.

Day 2 – realizing I’m actually doing this and it hurts

Day 3 – biking through washigton to Spokane, coming down onto a canyon and seeing wild horses running along the ridge.

Day 4 – Rivers of montana, beautiful state, beautiful open roads, Oh yeah and a tad bit chilly!

Day 5 – wow Montana is a big state, and everyone seems to be wearing camo! Oh and I woke up to feed the horses.

Day 6 – climb up to yellowstone, saw some up close nature… As in that bison is crossing the street in front of me. A long way up for a hole that blows smoke!

Day 7 – rolling into our shelter for the night to realize it was a hanger and we were expected to sleep on cement floors. Ouch ~ Instead heading to Vernal Utah and stopping on top of this climb for a little scenic view.

Day 8 – Rolling into Utah. Wow, route 128. I have no words to describe the beauty of this place. Pictures will have to talk.

Day 9- Santa Fe – Mmmmm… I didn’t really feel safe there, but the mountains and landscape coming in was breathtaking. I also think we got shot at from the distance!

Day 10- Roswell New Mexico… Little town with green aliens, generous town who pitched in to get us hotel rooms, I made the local paper! Oh and the biggest storm I’ve ever seen, hail, broken windows, flash flooding etc!

Day 11 – Arriving at a church in San Angelo Texas after a long day of dodging tarentula’s on the bike for a stretch of 112km of straight open road with a headwind of 50km/hr to a great BBQ with brisket, corn bread and homemade BBQ sauce. This long boring day was a good one to remember who I was riding for and why. Helped me finish the day.

Day 12 – Biking further into Texas, seeing signs for Austin! Woot! Biking passed a camel farm… Camel farm???

Getting to the finish line in Dripping Springs and realizing you’ve done it!

Day 13 – what? A day off? Ooooh…. What’s that pain? Longhorn game, local scene, bed later than I thought!

Day 14 – Livestrong challenge in the morning, Lance is pretty fast, but I caught his teammate Levi for a picture.

Good bye dinner with new found friends, oh, and hanging out with Kelly Gruber who I’m pretty sure had no idea where he was!

Got an award for working the GPS and pushing out asthma drugs to my teammates!

Ladies of the trip (+Gruber)

Today: I guess I am still wrapping my head around what happened. I look back from the moment I signed up for this, everything that went down and how really, it was a life changing experience. Looking back, I guess it really wasn’t about the bike. Met some incredible people, learned a lot about myself and now, today… I’m busy finding the girl that I left behind a few months back. I am looking forward to seeing what the next challenge will be and what will unfold in the months ahead.

Groung hog day…

So this morning when someone turned on the lights in the room where we were all sleeping on cots, the first thing I heard was “it’s groundhog day” and he was right.

Each day is amazing, biking through surreal scenery but each day is also very much the same. Get up at the crack of dawn, find food, bike, get in the van to find more food and a place to stay for the night.

We are on hump day now, tomorrow is day 7 which is supposed to be the hardest day for all.

I have a millions stories to tell about this beautiful trip, but everynight I make it in I’m so exhausted I just want to crawl on my cot and go to bed!

Until you ear the stories from me, you can check the FB album I’ve been tagged in, I’ll let the photos do the talking

Day 0

Coming from a fun and different evening out with Geoff… We got dressed up to attend a 50′s party then proceeded to go carb load dressed from a different era, I Woke up early and scared.

Stomach full of knots as we drove to the airport, broke down crying like a kid when I had to say goodbye. (please don’t tell anyone, it was a bit embarrassing!

I’m usually a pretty brave girl, not very much makes me scared but I have to say thats the main emotion I felt this morning and for the past few days as well.

A good kind of scared, kind of like the scared you get in grade 5 before an oral presentation.

Knowing myself, I’m going to keep feeling like this probably until we start getting underway. Race jitters but on a much different scale that I’ve ever felt before.

To keep busy on the flight I was reading our safety procedures when encountering wildlife. They defined what to do for bears, bisons, coyote and wolves. But my favourite one was the one associated with a deer:

“try not to run into it, it’ll hurt you more then you’ll hurt it.

On this note, I’m resuming trying to not get spooked by a bumpy flight; looking forward to arriving in Vancouver – my good good friend Marie is picking me up for a little bit of an adventure before I hit the road.

xoxox

ISA

Start of day 3

Hi everyone!

You’ll have to help me out and tilt your head to see the picture, my iPhone ain’t that capable!

Yesterday we made our way into Spokane, we had a long, not that steep but long climb on the bike. The last 60+km were on a never ending slope. Somehow that was more painful then the short and steep (like the 1km pink lake equivalent we had just ahead of us on this picture).

I am seeing breathtaking views already, we had a pack of wild horses running on a high ridge beside us in a canyon.

My knees are killing this morning, the only satisfaction is that I know that once I get on the bike and the first 25km’s wear off I’ll be feeling good!

Today we head into Montana, heading to Missoula.

Should be a fun but cold day

Catch you all in the next time zone!

Day 0

Coming from a fun and different evening out with Geoff… We got dressed up to attend a 50′s party then proceeded to go carb load dressed from a different era, I Woke up early and scared.

Stomach full of knots as we drove to the airport, broke down crying like a kid when I had to say goodbye. (please don’t tell anyone, it was a bit embarrassing!

I’m usually a pretty brave girl, not very much makes me scared but I have to say thats the main emotion I felt this morning and for the past few days as well.

A good kind of scared, kind of like the scared you get in grade 5 before an oral presentation.

Knowing myself, I’m going to keep feeling like this probably until we start getting underway. Race jitters but on a much different scale that I’ve ever felt before.

To keep busy on the flight I was reading our safety procedures when encountering wildlife. They defined what to do for bears, bisons, coyote and wolves. But my favourite one was the one associated with a deer:

“try not to run into it, it’ll hurt you more then you’ll hurt it.

On this note, I’m resuming trying to not get spooked by a bumpy flight; looking forward to arriving in Vancouver – my good good friend Marie is picking me up for a little bit of an adventure before I hit the road.

xoxox

ISA

The final hours

Here we are, the final 24 hours before I start on my journey to make my way to Austin, TX!  I’m leaving for Vancouver on a 7am flight and we start cycling as a group of 40 towards the Peace Arch Border Monday morning at 8:45am.

I wanted to thank everyone for helping me along the way,

To everyone who contributed either financially or with supporting equipment and with time in helping me organize events, thank you, my efforts would have been futile without your generosity.

Judy,  thank you for your strength and courage, you continue to amaze me on a daily basis and I am so grateful to now be able to call you a lifelong friend.  Stay strong cookie!  I’m doing this for you!

Mom-Dad-Cat:  I promise to stay safe and come back in one piece.

And last but definitely not least Geoff,  thank you for the months of being my side, helping-encouraging-supporting and loving as I’ve been trying to do my best at getting ready for this.  I couldn’t have done this without you, I hope you know that.

I will be blogging along the way, uploading pictures of the route etc…  Stay tune for updates and if you want to follow my next 2 weeks, use the subscribe button of the blog!

A few cool things that are going on!

I’m less than 20 days away from cycling across to AUSTIN TX!

I am so Incredibly close to my fundraising goal with about $1500 to go between now and October 1st. If you have it in you to give a little something please do… I’ve been working so hard that despite meeting the minimum goal of $5000 it is beyond important to me to meet my personal goal of $10,000 please visit http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/spoonsie. Make a difference in someone’s life.

Where to start, I can’t believe that the ride is almost here, May 18th when I decided to take this one seems like a million years away, even though it was less then 135 days away. I am exhausted but happy and so looking forward to the next month of crazyness.

The first thing that comes to mind is my fabulous friend Judy, really at the centre of this whole story. It hasn’t been easy for her as she is fighting her cancer “making it her b!tch and making it tap out” as my partner Geoff would say. Nonetheless she is a fighter and the manner in which she carries herself simply blows my mind day after day. I aspire to be as strong and courageous as she is. I can say that the best thing about this whole bike ride, fundraising etc is that I made a true friend for life that I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to know. We would have continued to be to colleagues working for the man.

Here is a picture of the two of us taken at my surprise “send-off” last week.

Speaking of this little send off, I really need to thank two of my girls Rose and Johanne for organizing such a wonderful evening. I really had no clue and was caught off guard, so much to the point I showed up unshowered after 4 hours of spin classes thinking I was dropping our dog off to be babysat! I probably smelled like a goat, but they were all nice and didn’t tell me.

Something else cool that happened also as a result of this. I met with a wonderful girl named Kym who is doing a pretty cool project called 100 Strangers. http://lemien.ca/?p=409 We had fun doing a colourful photoshoot for the bike, see it here on her blog which is about to be published in the citizen! Woot! Go Kym!

Lastly what about me now? I am starting a long overdue holiday, seems like it’s been since Summer 2008 since I had more than a few days off. Part 1 of the trip I have the honour of travelling to Oxford UK with Geoff who will be graduating from Oxford University! Such a privilege to attend! I’m off to the land of fish and chips, I’ll be back soon for a final update before hitting the road.

My CTV News Interview

Well this week we learned a valuable lesson in Media Relations.  Click here http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080319/ott_sportsspotlight_0800319/20080404/?hub=OttawaHome to watch the video and select the cycle link on the far right:

Don’t take me wrong, I am super thankful that CTV did a story on this as it is putting the message out there…

but I learned – only tell them what you want to see on TV as it’s funny how 10 minutes of interview can be summarised in a minute and 36 seconds!

It’s no secret to those who know me that my body underwent a transformation with all this training.  Under their health and fitness side they wanted to share my story.  I thought great, I get the cause out there and I get a link for my fundraising site…  I agreed to before and after pictures.

Well they put the story there but they spun it around weightloss and not about the cause and the fundraising…  Ah well, lesson for next time.  In the end like I said, I am still super thankful they featured this and hopefully there was a former me sitting there watching and thinking “If she can do it, so can I”.

oh and for those who watched and are wondering, it’s not 10,000km’s in 135 days, it’s $10,000 in 135 days and I’m almost there!  If you haven’t donated click here now to do it,  if you have and you have not received anything from me don’t panic yet… CRA is in charge of the tax receipt and I am in charge of the thank you coming shortly to a mailbox near you!

Lakes ~ Kitteh ~ Balls … (oh and some food too)

With the Triathlon season well under way, I also have to make time for some swims… and some runs.

Yesterday morning after getting a quick 5km run out of the way, it was first open water swim of the season.  Donned my wetsuit and headed out to Meech lake in good company.  Had a great swim, albeit under-fueled.  As a side note, I do not recommend heading out on a 1km swim with very breakfast being the last meal 6hrs and a 5km run before.  Nonetheless, had a great time and was surprised by how warm the water was!

I also learned that I can’t swim in a straight line to save my life.  At one point, swimming back, I lift my head after a while down and all I hear is a distant laughter…  Apparently I was successfully swimming in a circle.  Here is a little image tease of where I get to swim. Also the site of the upcoming Meech Lake Tri on July 3rd!

Once the swim was out of the way, it was time to go have some fun… Being stavin marlin we stopped at a little shop in chelsea that is quickly becoming one of my faves called “Les Saisons”.  It was there that I saw the cutest thing ever, 3 small kittens free to a good home trying make a break for the back door!  I swiftly moved into action and stopped them in their track (really I just wanted to play!)

Le Pavilion du Golf in Gatineau has the only batting cages in the region…  $10 buys you a 120 balls and a good 30 minutes of frustrating fun!  To keep going with a theme of hitting things, a bucket of balls at the co-located driving range was a must.    Results?

I can somewhat swing a bat…

I definitely cannot swing a golf club this year…

Geoff can definitely upswing me in both of those…

But I can sport a helmet!

All in all this was an awesome day spent in great company that reminds me that it IS possible to carry a normal life with the amount of training I need.  You just have to surround yourself with people who can appreciate this type of day…

To finish off the day, got a little cleaned up and shared a wonderful evening at L’atelier, by far one of my favourite restaurants in town.  The menu did not disappoint and a memorable evening to finish a great day!

Battle against the clock

Ah the good old alarm clock, internal clock, noisy neighbors, birds chirping, morning kiss or screaming kids…  regardless of how we wake up,  sometimes it’s with that groggy feeling.

Sometimes it’s also with that overwhelming pressure feeling, when you realize everything that you need to accomplish in the day ahead.  Sometimes just thinking about the list makes you want to pull the blankets back over your eyes!

As I wake up on this Friday morning, it’s one of those, where it’s 5am and my to-do list is already making me dizzy:

• Caffein-ate and fuel
• Work out 1
• Coffee #2 and fundraising catch up work @bridgehead
• Real job meetings all morning
• Lunch working session for #givetolive
• More meetings and deliverables… Incl a meeting at 3:30 on a Friday… Really?
• Workout #2
• And finally, happy hour beers…

All things considering, it’s a slow day ahead…  All I try to remember is that I should be thankful,  thankful that I have all these wonderful challenges to look forward to as I get up… someone reminded me of that this week.  Thank you.