Friday morning I visited Judy at the WTC. Ever now and then she has an Iron Girl project for me and of course I am always excited to help her out. I got interested in Ironman because of my internship with the WTC in 2005. Now I am close with everyone at the WTC (world triathlon corp) and I just love Judy at Iron Girl! I have lots of registration papers to enter into Active but although it seems tedious I love helping out. Saturday morning was cold. BURRR I felt so good on my bike but it was a bit chilly around 6:45am when I got on my bike. Ear warmers, arm warmers, shirt under the jersey and pants. I felt great until the first hour when I was hot and ready to de-cloth. Typical Florida riding in these first "winter" months. Karel had a 3 hour ride to do and I did a big loop which gave me 45 miles. It didn't take my long to get use to my new Blue and I absolutely love it! I couldn't wait to bring it to Clermont with me.
After breakfast and entering more athletes into Active.com for Iron Girl Tempe, I packed a bag and headed to Gearlink to pick up Karel at the store. Around 4:30 we headed on the road to Mount Dora and after 1 starbucks stop and 1 bathroom/stretch stop we arrived (without getting lost! Obviously because Karel was driving) at Mike's house. Mike Baleno is one of my good friends from Davie when I was going to grad school. Mike and Carlos were my two good friends and we were inseperable. All the races we were together and we just loved hanging out. Mike and Carlos have a good friend Bryan S. who is now part of the Triathlon club and I just love hanging out with those guys at races. I think my guy friends LOVE Karel more than I do so it is always a fun time seeing those guys and Karel talk about bikes and cycling. Mike cooked us a great vegetarian friendly dinner and we all just enjoyed the evening talking. I felt bad for Karel cause most of the talk was "triathlon" oriented :) We had a good night sleep since we didn't have to wake up until 6am and at 7am we headed to Clermont for the Horrible Hundred. This event was a first time thing for me and I was super excited to have a carbon road bike to use for all the big climbs. I decided to do the 72 mile ride and Karel was doing the 100 mile ride. We both covered the same climbs and wow were these BIG climbs. Nothing new for karel since one of his races covers Sugarloaf mountain 6 times!!!! but I was a little tired from all the climbs during this event. If you ever have the chance to do a cycling event (especially a challenging one or one that raises money for a charity) I would absolutely suggest taking up that opportunity. To have support on the course and aid stations stocked with goodies (PB and J, brownies, cookies, bananas, drinks, etc.) it is worth the cost. I was always riding with people and during the first 50 miles I was really feeling confident with my climbing. Around mile 45 or 50 I met a guy (scott) who knew Karel (I think everyone who races knows Karel-the white pinarello or blue colnago kinda give him away. Oh and the czech accent!). Scott Graham and I rode together for the rest of the ride and I was so happy to have a buddy to get me through the last couple of climbs. The course was marked well but the climbs were really tough. Sugarloaf was all that it is lived up to be and it is kinda long but steep. I had a lot of zig-zagging on the road to help me get up but I made it up the climb. Actually, I made it up all the climbs. Some were better than others and I was forced to get out of my saddle to climb my way up, but I did it! The event was very challenging and after I arrived back at Waterfront park with 75 miles on my computer, my finishing time for the event was 4:36. Not too bad to average 17 mph but i was just having a great time in the beautiful weather! About 25 min. later guess who shows up...yep, karel had 105 miles in 4:59. hummm....jealous or bitter? hehe-he said he was riding with the front pack of guys for 70 miles and he had to get a water bottle filled so he was forced to break off and stop at an aid station. He didn't want to push hard during this event so he was happy about his ride. We got cleaned up and headed home and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner at Outback. YUM!!! My favorite place. We usually devour a couple loafs of bread when we go to outback after cycling events. Of couse it is always outback for me before my tri's.
what a great way to end my weekend. If karel and I could, we'd be out on our bikes, somewhere new, every weekend. Of course we would love to move to Georgia or out west somewhere but for now we are saving up if we ever do get serious about a move (oh-job offers would be nice as well).
I hope everyone had a great weekend! Take advantage of the Thansgiving Holiday and enjoy some exercise with all those carbs that you'll be eating! And if family is coming in town, enjoy your time in the outdoors being active (I guess walking in the mall on black friday counts as exercise :)