Birthday Blog!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday! The Weather channel app on my phone told me the day's forecast called for 60's and 70's, breezy, with "plentiful sunshine" ... THANK YOU!! :)

haha, best happy birthday wish on facebook- thanks Rob Shannon!! :)

I had a fun weekend- our local race, the Tri-Shark Classic sprint distance, was on Saturday.  I was signed up to race, but given that my foot is in a sad, sad state right now and I can't run, I made the best of the situation and volunteered to help out.   I got hooked up with the finish-line announcing position- I had a BLAST!  I didn't have any experience with it before, but my job was easy thanks to Eric at ItsRaceTime.com .... I had a screen with the finishers' names/hometown/age pop up as they ran through the chute and results were instantaneous and reliable.  I also had "spotters" on the bike and run course (thanks Mike, Rich, and Travis!) texting me as the elite racers ripped by... it was fun updating the spectators back at transition as the race was going on!  I would definitely do it again- I would love to see my husband do it though- he is gifted with doing mental math like "This person would need to run x:xx pace to catch this person by the 4mi. mark..."  :)  It was fun to see all local friends racing, hearing the race recaps, and of course seeing them dominate the podium!

Thanks Carl and Tabitha for the funniest birthday card!

In other news, I've been VERY excited about getting a commuter/townie bicycle set up!  Dan and I have been sharing a car since he got back from his deployment- we both work/go to school in town, our schedules mesh well for sharing rides, and we have friends/family that can let us borrow a car if we really needed it.  So why waste money on getting another car when we are doing just fine with only one??

For the sake of being more active, enjoying the summertime weather, and having a little more freedom to come and go, I now have a Giant Cypress Hybrid bike!! For my birthday, Dan helped me pick out a couple cute bags to carry my STUFF in.  Here are a couple pics of the finished product!

My mom is too cute setting this up for me!! Wine and bread included! :)

Hanging out at the park this afternoon!

Dan had an errand to run, so I took Winston for a "ride" around the lake by our house... I held a leash and let him run next to me, I was SCARED to death he was going to pull me over, but it went well!! We both had fun!  We took a break in the shade as you can see above!  I also rode over to the farmers market in the afternoon and filled that red bag up with lots of fresh goodies :)

We topped off my birthday at our weekly bike time trial- a 20K course out on the country roads. I was apprehensive about racing on my birthday to say the least.  TT's are my favorite workout, but since my training and motivation have gone by the wayside the last few weeks (more on that a different post), I wasn't sure if I was ready for a bruised ego (on my birthday!).  After much hemming and hawing, I sucked it up, busted my a$$, and had my best ride of the year! I was 30 seconds faster, and rode HARD (7 watts higher than my best effort this year).  Since we go off single file (the fastest riders go last), usually the big boys make up the time and pass me early on in the course.  Well, nobody passed me either (They likely still BEAT me, but for the sake of my bday let's ignore that :).  YAY!  I better start training a little harder though, this luck is bound to run out soon ;)

After the race we usually hang around for a social hour, and last night was no exception.

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and for making my day very special and enjoyable!

I also had a great time catching up on the REV3 Quassy race reports... gosh I would LOVE to go back there soon!!  More on racing (or lack of) in a different post :)