One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, Fluffy, my old poodle friend, past away. To this day I still miss her and keep expecting to see her looking out the front window when I come home. The funny thing is that Worf now is occasionally looking out the window for me when I come home. It just sort of tears my heart out when I see it, but how is he to know. He is probably looking for her also. She used to love to bark at squirrels and cats. I can still remember her playing on the couch in Kenosha looking out the window at the squirrel that used to play with her. Or the time that she escaped out the back in Memphis and just sat by the parking lot watching people go by. She didn't run away or cause trouble. Or the one time that Barb had her up north and Barb totally forgot about her being outside. Only to find Fluffy sleeping under a tree in the grass just soaking up the sunshine.

And with this past week of Mr. Worf being sick with the possibility of not recovering, it has made me appreciate him more now that he is all ok. I gave him a big hug today and whispered Fluffy's name in his ear. He seemed to perk up and look around, wondering also where she is off to. We both must miss her.

She had been my friend for over 17 years. So today we will remember her and hope to see her someday at the end of the path. Many hugs and kisses will be exchanged. I can't wait till then....

Cheq 40 - 4:04:49.8

194 pounds....

Still the same weight, maybe I can get going down instead of up.

The Cheq 40 race was this past weekend. I ended up going solo since Mr. Worf had a strange injury happen a few days before leaving. He could hardly walk on his hind legs and was having a tough time with everything. Barb elected to stay home with him instead of having him boarded. That also meant that the girls would be staying home with her.

So Thursday rolled around and I packed up the Neon. I headed up north to my parents place in Catawba for the night. Chatted with Mom and Dad and caught up with Vinnie on how he has been doing since he has been battling shingles.

Friday morning came and then off to Ladysmith to visit my brother. His Corvette has been going thru more modifications and is looking better than it has in the past. We did go out and pound it some on the county roads. One thing that I will be doing before we go to Road America is to get a neck collar. If he pins it and you're not ready, you head is snapping back real fast.

After spending time with Tim, it was off to Hayward to meet up with Ted and Andrea at the New Moon bike shop. Nice shop up there in the middle of no where. Then off to Telemark Resort and the house that Ted has been renting for many years.

I did a preride with Sonjay and Ty of the last 4 miles of the course. Pushed pretty hard during that time since there are so many hills. It was decided after this that we would be prestaging our bikes race morning at 6:00am.

5:00am came and off we went. Surprisingly, we were not the only ones out there at this time. And it was cold, very cold. We headed back for more sleep. I did my usual no food before the race while everyone else was doing their normal things.

The race went quite well for me besides having 2 rear chain sucks. I have never had this happen to me before. The chain jammed between the spokes and the cluster, not once, but twice. I'm not sure yet if I have a mistuned rear derailleur or what. I finished the race in 4:04:49.8. I would have been somewhat faster, but probably not much. I started the race with my shell on and that was WAY to hot. That forced me to stop and take it off. Later at the fire tower hills, I ended up walking quite a bit of those which didn't help much. I was on track with my Hammer products and the body overall felt pretty well. I did cramp some at about the 3 hour mark and needed more Endurolytes out of sequence, but they did their job for the rest of the race. I also stopped and gave another rider some Endurolytes since he was cramping up big time about 2 miles from the end. I then stopped again when a love bug got under my sun glasses and was bothering my vision big time. When I went to get it off the glasses, I dropped them. I was lucky enough to have them not get squished by another rider. By the end I was spent. I might have left some on the table, but not much. Overall, I am quite happy with my first time at this race. Hopefully I will be able to compete it in again next year.

I know I will be gearing my training for climbing before Iceman. Graeme Street has a 4 week climbing training plan that I will be doing once I am done with this week of recovery.

Congrats to all I know that were there and that competed: Ted, Ty, Christine, Carlos, Greg, Mike, Russell, Bubba, Rick, the other Mike, Andrew, Shawn, Connie, and Sonjay. Thanks to everyone for a fun weekend.

I even got to meet Gary Fisher. That was pretty cool.