June 27th, 2009 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | No Comments »
Donna and i are having a good time. We left fun at Ullis and arrived here in Switzerland yesterday. I did not even have my bike and was getting charged 120 Euro for something at the airport. it was hard to understand why since she did not speak English and I did not speak German. We arrived and i was greeted by my friend Peter Muller and Dirk de Poost. It was nice to have bag men. We went straight to a bike shop in Kloten close to the airport and picked up a mountain bike for the race. The guy at the shop is sponsoring it. It is about a 10000 dollar bike if i were to purchase it in the states. i dont think the guy knows that i suck in the gigathlon stuff. It is carbon and light weight. Just getting on it made me feel fast. It does feel different but i worked on breaking in the bike last night.
What am I doing? yesterday Donna and i got a chance to relax. i was going to take a nap but after seeing the roads and thinking about skating i began to wonder what the heck i was doing here. I am much beter in both the mountain biking and skating then my first trip here but i am still out of my comfort zone. I was almost sick to my stomach thinking about it but i am better now. i am sure after getting on the skates some this week i will calm down.
mountain biking-last night we went mountain biking with a girls “house wife” group. Donna decided to go with us since we were told it would be all easy. Donna almost got killed by a car 6 weeks ago and the hematoma she has on her hip is 3x the size of mine. We met in the neighborhood at 6:30. I stlll had anxiety and a sick stomach from thinking about the stuff i get myself into. Donna was brave and borrowed some shoes and hopped on the bike. She had better balance then me and does not ever showed that she might be scared. She is tough as nails. The group of women showed up and all were in their 40’s to 50’s and looked like they would all be kicking my butt. An easy ride to them was going to be a hard one to me. We were going to do a “flat” route but i know what that means to a swiss. We started off on teh road up a mountain with some long climbing. We were not even a third of the way up and donna asked howmuch we were climbing. i had no idea since i was getting lead as well. We climbed for at least another hour. The girls asked if we wanted to do some tra.il. i needed it but did not want to take donna on them. She said “yes.” i was not sure if she knew what she hadgotten herself into. We started on some trails that were nice but still wet. There was lots of loose dirt but i loved this kind of trail vs. a single track of hard rocks. Donna went down on our first down hill of loose gravel. i was sick to my stomach. she was smiling and got back on the bike. We kept riding and the trails got a little more technical. some of the other girls walked some of the stuff. i was enjoying it but then donna went down again. She never went down on her bad hip but she got the other side. it was nothing major but i was now sick to my stomach with worry that we would have to catch a flight home today. She was laughing and a great sport. i told the others that we needed toget on the road. The swiss are amazing athletes and donna and i are pretty fit but we were not in our comfort zone. WE got on the road after about 200m and were safe…so we thought. We stopped at a cafe and some had a beer. We enjoyed looking at a lake that i swam in at the gigathlon in 2007. the sun started to come down and we were still on our bikes. It was getting close to 10. I figured we were around the corner from the house. WE got back on the bikes and really needed more lights. Some of the others had them but some did not. We road though long cool tunnels that were like a cave. They were lit and it was cool. We then came out of them into the dark and had soem more uphills and gravel like stuff. My wheel was slipping around and i was freaking out a little. i always have my lights. I was wondering how donna was doing but Reinie was looking after her and had a light. We were close to home but going through some trees where it got even darker. Donna had gone down again but saved her hip. i was feeling like i was responsible. We made it home safe but not without scrapes. We are staying at a docs house so donna got bandaged up. We got home at 10:30 and had left at 6:30. The house wife ride kicked our butt! Donna is safe and sound and i have more confidence. In the end it ended ok. This kind of ride is something i would get myself into but not Donna. What we did last night would be considered nuts in the states but this was a normal Friday night for the Swiss we were with. I am out of my leage here in Switzereland but i enjoy the challenge and am having a good time. WE were in good hands last night. If we did go on another ride i will just make sure we had our lights. i enjoyed the ride but i was worried about donna so that made it not so fun. Donna was great and in the end she enjoyed it. i am at Dirks now and donna is on the eliptical. i have a massage table and will be getting to work. There is rain here now but perhaps this afternoon i can get out and pratice skating some. The things i get myself into. Donna is not so bad off. She is boucing on a trampoline now. I am now able to get online with my laptop so i will post some past blogs as well.
Greetings from Switzerland.
24 Hours at Palo Duro Canyon
Tour de Palo Duro-This was in Amarillo, TX two weeks ago. I call it the tour de Palo Duro since it really was not a race. It was a fundraiser for cancer. I got a call from a guy named Chuck Anderson asking if I would come and ride in it. Chuck was on my first RAAM crew. He had a daughter die of cancer so of course I was going to put this on my list. His son was planning on trying to do 400 miles and was putting a team together to help him with get the first 100 miles done quicker. I was really needing to do some hill repeats so I thought it would be a good weekend. Palo Duro also had a place for mountain biking so you could do whatever you wanted. You could ride some on the mountain bike and some on the road. Whatever combo you wanted to do was just fine. I don’t think anyone really showed up to race except one mountain biker. Chris Anderson wanted to ride in memory of his sister. I was game for camping in my van and just training all weekend.
Chris (chucks son) had a meeting the night before and mentioned he would like us to stay together as a team the first part. We all got jersy’s and I was sitting next to some girl in a bikini with piercings everywhere. She had a cruiser bike. I have never really don’t much group riding but I knew that there were others that had not either. I asked Chris if we were going to be riding pace lines and stuff. His reply was that we were. My mind went “uh ohhh.” I really don’t like to ride close to I don’t know. I was game to give it a shot and the bikini girl was not going to be riding with us. She was going to be on her commuter bike in the canyons. She would have been fine with us as well.
The next morning we all grouped together in the morning and got in front of everyone. We were going to do our first 100 out of the canyons. I got right in front and did not want to be around so many people. We got started and I stayed as close to the front as I could. There was one guy that I noticed was riding sort of crazy. He would look down and his bike would weave. I took note to stay away from him. I call him Jamis since his bike had that name on it. Anyway , Jamis was making me nuts so when we got to this huge climb out of the canyon I decided try to speed it up. I was thinking about the race across the alps as I climbed it. I got out of the canyon pretty quick and regrouped with the others. I really did not hang out in the back too much. We were not really doing an organized pace line either. I decided to “go wunder” this is cranking up my music and riding in my aero bars. I rode away from them for a little bit. There was sag support every 20 miles. I rode on and off with them for most of the day. We were all cruising along pretty good and sort of doing a pace line. I was not paying much attention and was riding on some guys wheel. He swerved and then I realized it was the Jamis guy. I got out of the pack in a hurry and decided to ride beside them instead. About 10 minutes later I Jamis was in front of me again. The pack was disorganized and not really riding in a pace line. Jamis just wondered over by my. I backed off and allowed at least 5 feet between us and got a little over to the side. I guess I did not allow for a man down. He bumped into a guy in front of him and went down. It all happened pretty quick. We were averaging over 20 mph and next thing I knew I was on the ground. I was on my back and could feel my hip and shoulder stinging. I had a cuss word come out of my mouth. I laid there and anxiety started. I was leaving for Europe in 2 weeks…this was crazy. I had some guys looking at me and they asked “are you ok.” My response was sort of rude “heck no I am not ok.” I thought that was a dumb question at the time. This is what I would of asked as well but I did not want to hear that. I got up and had to calm down a minute. I got in the crew vehicle and followed for a but until the stinging got better. I could not stand it after about 15 minutes and asked if we could go ahead and check my bike out. I wanted to ride. The group was riding over 20 but it looked so slow from behind. I bet my crwew was going nuts at RAAM. They looked slow imagine how I looked. I got back out and on my bike. My hip was working but not feeling to good. I just wanted to get my hill repeats in. We all rode into the canyon and I turned around and did 4 hill repeats. This hill was about 1.5 miles and a 13 percent grade so it was good. I was riding pretty tough and did two out of the saddle and two in the saddle. The most annoying part was the horse flies. The horse flies were getting in all my rubbed spots and eating me. I had road rash on my back, shoulder, knee, and arm. I could not hit them off when I was climbing so I just had to deal with it. I guess my hip was working. When I got off the bike and took a shower…..it did look like I had a boob on my hip. I showed it to my sponsor. NiteRider tommy advised me not to do anymore mountain biking. I got my last hematoma around him. He must be the prob. I hobbled around the rest of the night but did get up and do some hill repeats the next morning. It did hurt and I do still have it.