(pic: with some of the team, all cancer survivors, post-ride potluck, Pellegrino in hand :)

TRAINING LOG

Event: Honolulu Century, Team In Training
Ride location: Sonoma, Kenwood, Glen Ellen
Distance: 35 miles
Song: One of my coaches told me to always have a song in your head when you ride. Today it was "Love is the Answer", England Dan & John Ford Coley. Corny perhaps but never fails to put a smile in my heart.

Thoughts: Worked on communication, hand signals and pacelining with the team. Also gear selection and climbing and descending techniques. Climbed Sonoma Mountain Road, my first time tackling this short steep bear of climb, gets you sucking air, legs throbbing, your heart pounding in your ears. Of course the best part of climbing is bombing downhill. Got to paceline with the fast group on the team, pushing myself just beyond my comfort zone, legs burning, grinning the whole time, glad to be on the bike, one of my favorite things to do. I think it has to do with the freedom and fun of cruising the neighborhood on ten speeds as kids, the joy of movement, pushing my limits, and the 'need for speed." I paid for it in the afternoon, I was exhausted, probably a little dehydrated as well, the effort along with the heat.

I saw this line somewhere, I've adopted it as my own, a 'delicious thought': "Biking is my hot fudge sundae."

Yeah baby.

I had a chance to thank all the teams (triathlon, cycle and marathon) at the post-training potluck. It's always an honor to say thank you to the people who are raising money to help fund the research that helps keep me alive.

Most of them are endurance event first-timers: selfless, expanding their limits, relishing the challenge, doubting their doubts. I told them it's not the time, it's the distance; it's not the size of their muscles, but the will in their heart. Team In Training is all about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for extraordinary people who would give anything to be ordinary again. Speaking of, current blood test results come back on July 7, one day before my 3-year remission anniversary.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, waiting to exhale.

-R

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