21 - The 21st and final stage of the Tour de France was held yesterday on the Champs-Elysee and it was wonderful going out party for this years tour. Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey in the overall classification in a masterful display of time trialing on Saturday. The two Schleck brothers rounded out the podium, and at least one of which (Andy) will likely be on the TdF podium for many years to come. I just hope he eats some damn cheeseburgers along the way because he's skinnier than my wife, who is pretty skinny.
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| Andy is the left piece of bread in the Schleck podium sandwich |
50 - Speaking of eeking up my mileage on the bike, packing and weather got in the way a lot this weekend, but I was able to get in a long ride Sunday afternoon. I got in a late ride, and rode until I ran out of daylight. Rachelle wasn't feeling well so for the first time in a couple months I did a long ride all alone. I wound up doing 50.47 and had a terrific ride. With traffic stops and starts, i still managed over 14 MPH. I cracked climbing a small steep hill but I pedaled through it, and then followed that with a mile of slower paced riding and was able to get myself back to speed. Total time was 3:36, so if I'm able to duplicate that pace for the race, I'll be in very good shape. Next weekend is 75 to 80 miles, so It'll be a bigger challenge yet!
133 - You guys know me and contests by now, right? Well, I'm participating in a contest where people entered daily recaps of each Tour de France stage in 133 characters or less. Each day a winner was picked to go into the finals for a series of 8 different prizes. I was fortunate enough to win 2 stages (stage 12 and 16) and I would have won Stage 9 had it not been "neutralized" due to all the crashes. Anyways, this contest isn't just about me, because voters on the contest are entered to win their own set of prizes. All you need to do is go HERE and read the entries and rank the ones you want to win, either via email or blog comment. You can't enter anonymously, so make sure to leave your twitter or facebook name. Personally I'm shooting for prizes #1 and #5, as those would be great additions to my cycling collection!
140.6 - Our friend Caratunk Girl finished IM Lake Placid yesterday with a 15:XX time!! So super proud of her. For a while the athlete tracker wasn't working and we were afraid something had happened to spoil her day (and she's a way better athlete than Rach and I so if she had problems...) but thankfully everything worked out and she is now an IRON(WO)MAN!
683 - I still need to raise $683 to finish my fundraising for my Rev3 Cedar Point 140.6 race. It's been a busy summer and my opportunities to do another raffle have not materialized. I'll contribute more myself in the next couple weeks, but with us moving somewhere when Rach finds a job, I can still use all the help I can get. If you're considering donating, please visit my fundraising link to do so. Thanks again!
20,000 - Finally, sometime around noon ET on Friday, I passed the 20,000 unique visitor mark here on the blog. If you told me I could get anyone other than my mom and Rach to read it when I first started, I would have never believed you. It thrills me to no end to share my thoughts in this way and as much as it allows me to reflect on the past and keep working on my goals, it's an added bonus that so many of you have gotten something from it as well.
Glad Cadel won. He busted his lungs to get that done. Andy needs more work on that time trial and he'll be a podium-topper for sure.
ReplyDeleteI'm also glad I voted for you on the TdF 133 because I just got an email saying I won the mugs!
Edie -HAHAHA - Rach was hoping for those, but she also won a prize, its a humorous book regarding the tour from a journalist who knew nothing about cycling when he went to cover his first tour.
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