Tales of a Last-Minute Sally

In keeping with my habit of waiting 'til the last (and I mean VERY last) minute to get things done, I figured I would finally blog about our Memory Ride training rides from the past few weeks (OK, months). When last I blogged (back in May!!??), I mentioned we had 3 rides to report on, but then I only blogged about two of them (Mother's day and San Francisco). The 3rd ride was a really nice 30-mile loop that Ta, Neddie and I did in the Concord/Carlisle area. We came upon this monument in Concord Center:

Then Ta and I got ... well, let's just say distracted with a certain real estate transaction. But while we were on the Cape we did manage to get in a few rides... one long one out to P-town and back and a few shorter ones out to Lt. Island. We stopped in at Wellfleet Bay and visited Charlie's spot:

Back in Boston, we went on another ~25mile ride with Neddie, this time on the South shore/ Blue Hills area. My guess is they're called "Blue" Hills after the color your face turns while trying to climb up them. Aside from oxygen deprivation, this ride was notable for two things: 1) Ta's first wipe-out of the season; 2) a certain street sign we came upon:

Two weekends ago Ned, Ta and I did our last training ride together, a really pretty 40-mile loop on the North shore in Ipswitch/Essex/Manchester. We wrapped up the ride at Singing beach where we dipped our tootsies in the chilly Atlantic.

Not only am I a last-minute-Sally blogger, but I'm also last minute when it comes to training. The 40-mile North shore ride with Ta & Ned made me realize how woefully underprepared for the big ride I was. I had to work last weekend so I wasn't able to do any rides. So this past week I went into panic mode. Monday I put my bike on the back of my Mini, drove to a commuter rail station about 20 miles away from work and rode in from there. OMG, Worcester county has some serious hills. Let's just say, Monday was a short work day... it took me 2 hrs to ride in and 1.5 to ride back, so I think I was only at work for an hour or two. Tuesday was wicked rainy here so I just put my bike on the trainer in the basement and rode for about 45min. Wednesday I did a 40-mile portion of the Memory Ride route. And, yes, it did include the dreaded "6 miles of crying". The good news is that it's definitely do-able, but it is tough. My advice is don't over think it, cause you'll psych yourself out... just take it one hill at a time. Yesterday, I did a quick out and back on the Minuteman path, which is about 20miles, easy flat riding. I did that mostly to just re-inforce the work I had done earlier in the week. I thought it would be completely uneventful, but then I decided to have what I'm calling a "sympathy crash" for Polly. I completely scraped up my knee and got a big bruise on my tussic.

Today, I decided to take the day off and rest my weary bones.

I think I might be ready...