17 weeks to Ironman Cozumel and Jack's Generic Triathlon

Love this year's logo, I assume Stacy does the artwork-awesome! Photo by Tom Marek

In Ironman training, this was a recovery week, so nothing too interesting, except- just 17 weeks to go!

Jack's Generic Triathlon is the 3rd race in the the Texas Tri Series and my 4th race of the year. It's a sprint distance at the Texas Ski Ranch. Goals for this one: to go faster in each discipline than last year, although my swim time wasn't properly recorded last year and it was a very cool day in August last year (how in the world did that happen??) so I knew beating last year's run would be really tough. Race morning Logan announced the high for the day would be 103, and I decided I'd be happy with a good swim, improvment on the bike and just surviving the run.
Sandra and me at the Ski Ranch way before sun rise! Photo by Amy BushSunrise at the Ski Ranch, the water doesn't even look that disgusting at sunrise! Photo by Amy Bush

Julie and Sandra picked me up at 5am and we got to the Ski Ranch in time to get a great parking spot and good transition spots. I got transition set up and had lots of time to hang out with the other Tri Zoners and say hi to other friends- Amy (although I think she counts as a Tri Zoner under the "once a Tri Zoner, always a Tri Zoner" rule), Ron & Roger, Kathleen, etc. I always do a pre-race warm up swim, I feel like it helps even when I'm in a later wave, but I was in the bathroom line and missed my opportunity. I was a little bummed about it but I must have looked really bummed. Tom came over to say hi to us and asked "what's wrong Heather?" "I'm sad becuase I didn't get to do my warm up swim" Pretty pitiful that I was sad I didn't get to get in the goat poo water early!Julie, me, Sandra, Eva, and Teri pre-race. Photo by Tom Marek

The race started and most of us had 30+ minutes to wait for our waves to start. I don't usually worry about sunscreen especially for short races, but with the sun already beating down on us at 8am, I was thinking that might be a mistake, I mentioned that to Eva who then ran and got me some sunscreen right before my start- thanks Eva! I lined up by the water and all of a sudden I was super happy and excited to be racing! I met Sara from the NXNW team who started right next to me.NXNW Sara and me just before our start. Photo by Tom Marek

Swim
I started at the very front of my wave and went out pretty fast, immediately I had a tough time catching my breath and figured it was because I hadn't done my warm up swim. I slowed down a little and concentrated on reaching and rotating and felt much better. I had very little contact on the swim and I didn't get hit or kicked hard at all. Sara and I were swimming side by side for awhile, so I tucked in behind her to draft. I stayed behind her well, and with about 200 meters to go I thought I'd pass her and give her a chance to draft. I hoped she would realize it was me and what I was doing, but I'm not sure if she did, I never felt her drafting, but she was out of the water just a few seconds behind me. Swim time was 11:16. T1 3:09. Last year my swim and T1 were recorded together at 14:43, so I had an 18 second improvement over last year.

The Ski Ranch water is pretty disgusting, a combination of goat poo (goats live on the island in the middle of the pond), oil, and silty mud. They have to do water quality tests, so technically it's safe, but it doesn't always look, smell or feel good. Goats that live on the island. Photo by Amy Bush

It's not too bad if you're in an early wave, but after a few hundred people get the muck all stirred up it's gross! The muck sticks to your face and makes it look like you have a dirty mustache & beard! As I came out of the water a volunteer handed me a face wipe- awesome! I was so happy to be able to get that crud off my face! I also got a cup of water to rinse any residual muck out of my mouth. The rest of T1 went smoothly and I saw Bob H. as I was getting on my bike.

Bike
I saw Sara (she had a faster T1 than me) and we played tag up and down a few of the first hills. I was feeling great through the first few miles and my avg speed was 16.5 mph- awesome! I saw Nydia volunteering on the course and said hi, and I thanked lots of the other volunteers. I knew we'd come to a section of chip sealed road, but I remembered it being pretty short. I got to the chip seal and as always it slowed me down some. We got back on the smoother road and I think I actually yelled out "woohoo! Smooth road!!" But it was too soon, apparently they chip sealed most of the rest of the course within the last year and it was super rough- YUCK! It was so bumpy that it jolted my Garmin and made it turn off, just like at Couples, so I lost some of my data and didn't have accurate avg. speed or time data the rest of the ride. The chip seal slowed me down a lot but I was still passing quite a few people and it didn't seem like that many people were passing me, so I guess the nasty road slowed most people down. Photo by Tom Marek
I expected Julie, Kim and maybe Eva & Sandra to pass me on the bike but none of them did. The last 3 or so miles was back on smooth roads, I really tried to speed up as much as I could until I saw a woman laying on the side of the road with bloody road rash on her shoulder, there were already people there to help her so I kept going, but that's just not something anyone wants to see during a race (or ever). I heard later that she was ok. I came in to T2 feeling decent about my bike even though the course was a little tougher with all that nasty new chip seal. Last year's bike pace was 14.2 this year's 14.9, so I got some good improvement there!
Almost finished with the bike. Photo by Tom Marek

T2
I got into T2 and immediately turned on my Garmin for the run. I took care of everything else, and put the Garmin on but it hadn't acquired its satellites yet. I know from experience that the faster you move the longer it takes, so I started to walk slowly out of transition, hoping it would be ready by the time I hit the mat, it wasn't but I started running anyway and a minute or so later it was finally ready. T2 was 2:02 this year, last year's was 1:47.

Run
I love the run course at the Ski Ranch! It's out and back, uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back. Since it's out and back you get to see other racers and high-five all the other Tri Zoners- fun! Yeah, it was HOT, but I do pretty decent in the heat, I couldn't run quite as fast as I would have liked, but I expected that. Julie finally passed me at the beginning of the run and we talked for a minute before she got too far ahead of me. As I got close to the turnaround I saw Vanessa, Kathleen, and Julie again. At the turn around aid station I said hi to Gayla and grabbed a water from Kendra as I turned around. I started running and heard Kendra yelling something, then it registered that she was yelling at me "Heather the turn around is WAY up there!!" Oh CRAP! I turned around too soon, that aid station was at the turn around last year but I guess not this year. I turned back around ran back to Kendra and realized the turn around cone was about 2 feet behind her! Oh geez! I turned back around for just 2 feet! Oh well, I ran all the way around the cone while Kendra and Gayla laughed at me. On the way back I got to see and high five almost all the Tri Zoners (most of them started a wave or 2 behind me). As I came back into the Ski Ranch and around the water, Bob H. was cheering near the finish and said something about me smiling and I could pick it up and pass someone if I wanted. He made me laugh, but I did pick it up and pass the girl in front of me- so thanks Bob! I felt good on the run, but I know I ran a little slower than last year because of the heat. This year's run pace was 11:20 last year's was 10:12.

Overall time this year 1:45:51 last year it was 1:45:39, so I missed a PR by just 12 seconds! That's a little annoying because of course I can think of about 10 places where I could have made up 12 seconds- the cone at the run turnaround, messing with my Garmin in T2, slowing down going around the rider down toward the end of the bike, etc. But honestly, conditions were much tougher this year than last so I can't complain about 12 seconds slower!

I got to see most of the Tri Zoners finish and we had a great time hanging out post race (and comiserating about the heat and the chip seal!) and watching Julie and Kim get their awards.
Nydia, Sandra, Kim, Judy, Eva, and I found a tiny spot of shade post-race. Photo by Tom Marek

Bananarchy

Since I'm not eating wheat (ok, I'll probably go to Homeslice at least once and have a cupcake or 2 before Ironman Cozumel, so maybe I should say very little wheat) until after Ironman Cozumel, I needed to find something to replace Hey Cupcake and Gordough's as my decedant, yummy, once in while treat. Ingrid and David L. had suggested Bananarchy so Jeff and I went last night.
They take their bananas seriously, or maybe not :)
Jeff by the menuI got a Milli Vanilli with toffee, yeah it's not like a frozen banana dipped in chocolate and white chocolate and covered in toffee is healthy, but it's my decadent once in while treat, it's not like I ever ate cupcakes or Gordough's that often either- but I pretty much always blog about it when I do, so it may look like I do it all the time!
Jeff got a white chocolate covered banana with graham cracker and cinnamon
The bananas were definitely yummy and hit the spot for a decadent treat. Can't wait to take Ingrid next time she comes to Austin after Vineman!

18 weeks to Ironman Cozumel and Austin Fun

Another good week of workouts, a Splash & Dash PR (by just 5 seconds) on Tuesday, and a really nice ride from Andice with Sandra, Scott, Kendra, Kim & Gayla on Saturday. Even 40 minutes of running after the ride felt pretty decent, and it was hot out there! I expected Sunday's 10 mile run to hurt, but it went surprisingly well. I tried the chia seeds Ingrid gave me for the first time pre-run, I didn't do anything else different and I felt really good the entire run. I probably need to try them a couple more times before I decide for sure if they're Magic Seeds... :)

Saturday afternoon we harvested tomatoes at our community garden, then headed over to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for a drink. While there we thought it would be a great evening to watch the sun set, so we decided to go up to Mt. Bonnell with a stop at Mayfield Park to watch the peacocks and kill some time.This was the only peacock picture we took since we only stayed a minute. But last time we went we walked the trail.Jeff walking the trail at Mayfield Park.And we hung out with the peacocks.
There was a wedding at Mayfield Park this time so we didn't stay and just hung out at Mt. Bonnell instead.On the way up to Mt. Bonnell, that's right, I rocked the compression socks all weekend, even in public.Lake Austin from Mt. Bonnell
Jeff at Mt. BonnellA couple pictures of the sunset, they don't do it justice at all.and one of the moon rising

20 weeks to Ironman Cozumel, Red Licorice Swim, Katy Flatland Century, Austin Fun, & Houston Fun

20 weeks to Ironman Cozumel

We'll see how well I do, but I'm going to attempt to blog about how my training is going every week. Monday- rest day. Tuesday- Mopac Time Trial, 2 laps a the Veloway to warm up then 2 laps on South Mopac 18.2 mph and 18.1 mph for 24 miles total. Wednesday- morning swim 1950 yds. Thursday- Tri Zones run, 5+ mile including some speedwork. Friday- early morning 8 mile run with Sandra, 8 miles shouldn't have felt hard, but after a fairly hard 5 miles the night before it was a tough run. Saturday- Red Licorice swim. Sunday- Katy Flatland Century ride. That makes 5950 yds/m swimming, 124 miles biking, 13 miles running, and just over 13 hours total training time for the week. I didn't really need to do a 2.4 mile swim or a 100 mile ride 20 weeks out from the race, but they were available and as it turns out, both were great confidence builders.

Red Licorice 2.4 mile swim

For me this was mostly just a fun way to test how my swimming is going. I knew I could do the distance, although I had never done it without a wetsuit. I'm not a wetsuit dependent swimmer so I wasn't nervous at all, but my swim times have been faster since I started using Coach Jen's sleeveless wetsuit, so my only real concern about the swim was that my time would be slower than it was in May for the same distance.

Ingrid, Brad and I got to Mansfield early enough to hang out with the Tri Zoners and check out "my" banner. Jake North had it made a few months ago, but this was the first time I had seen it in person- fun!
Laughing because Sandra is trying to use my camera phone- it's hard to use and doesn't even take very good pictures. Jake's turned out way better. Photo by Jake North Photography

We gave Sandra her birthday card and wished her a happy birthday swim, then it was time to get in the water. I was still a little way from the "start line" when Leilani said "GO" oh well, I got to swim a couple extra meters. I couldn't have asked for a better swim, the water felt good, not too hot, not to cold, pretty clear and I was feeling great! I was hoping for a time around 1:30 so when I finished lap 1 in :40 I was really happy. There weren't that many people swimming 2.4 miles (more swam 1.2 or 800 meters) so on lap 2 I didn't have other swimmers around me very often, but the course was well marked and I'm happy in open water, I would have loved some feet to draft on but no big deal. I came around the last bend and saw Leilani waving her arms to signal the finish line. Swam over to her and checked my watch- 1:23- Awesome! That's 10 minutes faster than in May with the wetsuit and 7 minutes faster than my goal time of 1:30 at Ironman Cozumel! Red and Amy said this means I need to modify my Ironman Cozumel goal, but I'm not so sure...the Caribbean Sea won't be as calm as Lake Travis and 2000 other swimmers thrashing around me may slow me down, but maybe I'll get some feet to draft on.
Super happy with my swim! Photo by Jake North Photography

I was starving, so I grabbed some food then got back in the water to see Sandra and Ingrid finish. This swim was a big deal for Sandra because she had decided if she could do it and "still move her mouse hand after" then she would officially sign up for Ironman Cozumel! She was worried about being last, but she wasn't even close to last and she had a great swim! I was super excited for her! Ironman Cozumel here we come!!!
Congratulating Sandra on an awesome swim! Photo by Jake North Photography

This swim was also a big deal for Ingrid. She has come so far with her swimming it's amazing! But she still gets nervous about swimming long distances without a wetsuit. 2.4 miles is twice as long as she's ever swum without a wetsuit and She did it!! She had a great swim too!
Darn you Jake North for taking such awesome pictures that I'm going to have to buy them! Photo by Jake North Photography

I was really happy with my swim and PR, but I was even more happy that Sandra and Ingrid had such awesome swims!! What a great start to the weekend!!

After the swim we had lunch at Zen and packed up to head to Houston for the Katy Flatland Century Ride (KFC, a couple months ago when Del first put KFC in an email I thought "why is he talking about fried chicken??") We had dinner at Barnaby's with Del, Matt, and David. There aren't many places I miss from Houston, but Barnaby's is one of them. I hadn't seen Matt since the marathon in February and I can't even remember the last time I saw David. We had a great time talking, laughing and catching up!
Del, David, me, and Matt at Barnaby's
Del and me with our KFC t-shirt. Thanks for picking up our packets Del!
Ingrid with Barnaby in Hawaii

On the way to Barnaby's we were talking about Paleo/Primal eating and living and vitamin D and sunscreen. Out of the blue, Ingrid said she had a birthday present for me and wanted to give it to me now since we won't see each other again until after my birthday. She was really excited about it, so of course I was too! When we got home from dinner, I opened my presents, first- the Primal Blueprint cookbook- Awesome! I had come really close to ordering that for myself, glad I didn't now! and then Zinka sunscreen in blue, green, pink, and yellow! Again something I had almost bought for myself last week! I did some sunscreen research for Cozumel and found that zinc oxide is the safest and best sunscreen, only problem- it leaves a white (or colored) film on your skin. I had already decided I was going to find Zinka from the '80s (I always wanted it as a kid, so at least I can have it now!) and use that in Cozumel. So thanks Ingrid! Awesome gifts! And this officially means I get to celebrate my birthday for 3 weeks, I'll be 33 so that works well.

Katy Flatland Century Ride

A couple months ago Del suggested I should do the KFC ride, I thought it would be a good long, flat, windy ride so great Cozumel training. The longest I had ever ridden before was 62 miles. This season my longest rides were 58 and 54 miles at the Tour de Cure, so I knew 100 miles would be a big jump in distance and I didn't really have any goals or expectations other than to finish.
pre-ride with my new Zinka on my nose and cheeks

Ingrid and I started early around 6:30 or so with a few other HRTCers. Ingrid and I rode together, a slow recovery pace for her and a faster than normal pace for me, for the first 35 miles. We got to watch the sun rise and enjoy a beautiful morning. So many times I wanted to pull out my phone and take pictures of the sun rise, pretty lakes, the road so flat that you could see into the distance forever, but my phone camera isn't that great and I didn't really want to stop. Ingrid decided to stick mostly to her CONTINUOUS ride plan and keep going when I stopped to mix Infinit at mile 35. The worst part of the ride for me was a 5ish mile section of hwy 36 that was super bumpy nasty chip sealed road- yuck! I was really happy to get to 50 miles and be halfway done and still feeling good! I stopped at the 60 mile stop to stretch my legs and see if they had a sign for the "Buzzard's Gate" if you didn't hit this stop by 12:30 they would make you do the shorter 80 mile route instead of the century. No buzzard sign so instead I took a picture showing that I still had over an hour and a half before the buzzard cut off, too bad you can't see the time in this picture.
I felt good until around mile 75 when I was just ready to be finished. I'm not sure how much of that was getting tired and how much was the route at that point, chip sealed (although not nearly as bad as the nasty section of hwy 36) and lots of turns. I slowed down a lot a that point and a guy caught me who seemed to be having a tough day. He said the heat was really killing him and he was going to go slow and easy the rest of the way. I really hadn't thought about the heat until then, but it didn't seem bad to me, sometimes the breeze felt hot, but other times it felt kind of cool, the sun had been pretty bright most of the ride, but by the time we were riding together clouds were coming in. I rode with him for a couple miles then we turned onto a smooth highway again so I told him I wanted to see what my legs had left and I may see him again in a few minutes, but my legs felt good and I never saw him again.
10 miles to go!
I checked my phone at the 90 mile rest stop because it had been going crazy with text and voicemail noises. I saw that Del had broken a spoke and had to get SAGed in at mile 50, I was really sad for him because he had been so excited about his first century ride. I also sent Ingrid a text letting her know I was 10 miles from the finish. I took off feeling good, but I noticed the clouds were getting really dark, with about 8 miles to go it started raining really lightly, less than 5 minutes later it stopped. I was hoping I could beat the rain to the finish, but with about 5 miles to go it started again, this time harder, not terrible but enough to make my brakes not really work at an intersection, luckily a police officer was there and had traffic stopped. About a mile or two from the finish, the rain stopped again and the sun started to come out a little. As I came into the stadium Ingrid was there cheering me in and taking a video with her phone! I'm going to try to put it on here, but Jeff and I haven't gotten it to work yet. Yay! I finished my first century ride!
Finished my first century ride!!
Ingrid says I'm number 1 because I just finished my first Century

Ride info

Ingrid and I moved our cars closer to the lunch building (which ended up being VERY smart) and had snow cones and lunch. The cafeteria didn't have windows, but it sounded like it might be raining, when we walked back outside, it was POURING. I'm so lucky I finished when I did! We hung out a while hoping it would let up but it did not. We saw a few riders finishing in the pouring rain who looked wet, cold, and miserable! Ingrid convinced me that she should run to her car and bring it up to the building and drive me to my car since she had a 30 min drive home and I had a 3 hour drive home and driving while drenched from the rain is icky. What a great friend!! She jumped into the Xterra with me to say good bye, I thanked her for such a fun weekend and she said "we had Austin AND Houston Fun this weekend!"
hard to see the pouring rain in the picture, but you can see the flooded street- so glad I didn't have to ride in that!
The beginning of my drive home was in crazy heavy rain, but it lightened up a few miles west of Katy and was patchy most of the way home. I was worried that I would be super tired and my legs would feel awful on the drive home, but it wasn't bad at all.

If all of my Ironman training goes as well as this week and weekend I'll be very happy!

Couples Tri

Cassie and I showing off our Tri Zones tatoos. Photo by Tom Marek
I had so much fun at Couples last year and was really looking forward to it this year! Cassie and Del came to Austin and we hung out on Saturday. Last year Cassie and I were Sweet & Twisted so this year we decided to be Straight & Sour! Leilani from Red Licorice liked our shirts so much (or maybe not!) that she messed up my bodymarking, 113, 114, 11... hang on Leilani, I'm #113! Oh NO! hahaha! I got into transition and realized I forgot a towel, Decker is usually really dusty and my feet are muddy when I get to T1 so I like to wipe them off before putting on shoes. Thanks for letting me borrow your extra towel Julie W.!

My goals for this race- to improve my swim, bike and run over last year, even if it's just by a little and of course to have fun! The fun started early since there were lots of Tri Zoners racing and volunteering so Cassie and I hung out with them pre-race. We did a very short swim warm up and I reconfirmed that I really love swimming in Decker Lake.
Cassie and I pre-swim photo by Del Gutierrez
Last year's Couples swim was really rough with lots of kicking, scratching, and craziness and I had a pretty terrible swim at The Rookie in May so I decided to start very close to the front of my wave this time. When I saw Coach Jen was only 1 row in front of me, I started to doubt my positioning, but the gun was about to go off, so no time to move back. I took off and surprisingly had almost no contact! No breaststrokers kicking me, no one swimming over me, I think I maybe got touched 2 times in the first 100 meters- cool! Before I knew it I was at the first turn buoy, I turned and saw the power plant, Red had told us the second turn buoy was in perfect line with the power plant, so I never even looked for the buoy just sighted of the power plant and it worked perfectly- thanks Red! Then the final stretch and out of the water in 18:10 compared to 19:46 last year. Easily my best triathlon swim this season and probably one of my best swims ever, I felt great the entire time!

T1 was 3:50 compared to 4:28 last year. I grabbed a cup of water from Katherine and realized it was more grassy than dusty in transition this year. Cassie came into to transition just as I was leaving.

The Decker bike loop is hilly, I did well on the hills and had fun last year, but my new bike has a standard double instead of a compact double crankset, so I'd been worried about a couple of the steeper hills, especially since I hadn't ridden this course since Longhorn last year (on my old bike). I got out on Decker Lake Rd and felt great up and down the first couple of hills. Then I turned onto Decker Lane and felt like I was flying (this is why my bike's name is Spinnaker)! I barely had to work going up the hills and just flew down them, thanks to a serious tailwind- I knew I'd have to pay for that later but it was fun! Cassie and Sandra- on her super cool race wheels- flew by me on Decker Lane. Cassie flew by me on Decker Lane! Photo by Tom Marek
When I turned onto Lindell, my average speed was 16.3 mph- amazing for me! I was nervous about Little Tard, but I made the turn and started up it and it was no big deal at all- cool! I was starting up the next hill when my Garmin turned off! I've only had my Garmin Edge for about 6 months but I'm completely addicted to it! I know I slowed down while I was messing with it and finally got it to turn back on, it had kept my data, so I just had to start the timer again. I knew my time and average speed wouldn't be accurate now, but at least I had all my other info. The headwind was worst on a long uphill section but I knew I had that coming after the awesome tailwind on Decker Lane. I think there was more wind today than any other time I've ridden Decker, but still nothing like Parmer or P-ville. Then down the big hill and up Quadzilla (aka Big Tard) and it was no big deal either! Awesome! I guess all those crazy hills with Coach Jen are starting to pay off!! I was super happy and had so much fun on the ride! Near the end of the bike and having lots of fun! Photo by Tom Marek
Tom was taking pictures just before the park entrance and I waved and said hi to him as I rode by, he laughed and said "I could see your huge smile a mile away!" Bike pace was 14.0 compared to 13.7 last year, not super fast, but not bad for me on a hilly course, especially considering the time spent messing with my Garmin and the headwind on the second half.

T2 was 1:51 compared to 2:03 last year.

I felt great starting the run, maybe started out a little too fast. I've noticed lately that my brick runs are usually faster than my regular runs- weird. The course was really muddy, it's mostly a trail run and it's been raining a lot lately, I'm really glad Cindy & Kristen had warned us about the mud ahead of time! But I don't think it slowed me down too much. About halfway through the run I was having trouble catching my breath, even if I walked for a minute. I didn't realize at the time that it might be an asthma issue. I got to Mofo and decided I was going to run/walk it and walk the last steepest section. I got to the steepest section and Don T. Bonk came over and said "I'll run with you to the top" (you've all seen him right? I've seen him at a lot of races but this is the first time he's chosen me out of the crowd to run me up the hill) ok, guess I'm not walking the last section! I got to the top and could barely breathe at all, I walked a few steps then ran toward the finish. Cassie had already finished but came back and ran with me to the finish and hopefully we got a cool finish shot together. I started wheezing pretty bad while I was running to the finish with Cassie, but I was so close that I just kept going knowing that I'd feel better when I stopped and I had an inhaler in transition, not sure why I had asthma issues today when I haven't for so long, it definitely slowed me down in the second half of the run but I still ran a 12:03 pace this year compared to 12:11 last year.

Final time was 1:49:14 compared to 1:53:09 for a PR by almost 4 minutes. Cassie had a HUGE 11 minute PR over last year so our combined time was 15 minutes faster than last year!
Cassie and I post-race. Photo by Tom Marek
After the race it took me a couple of minutes to catch my breath, but then I had a great time hanging out with everyone! A few Tri Zoners won awards and Kristen won the Volunteer of the Day! I think almost everyone had a great race, and Cassie said later that Couples is one of the most fun races! I definitely agree.

Erika's 30th Birthday
Just a few pictures from a really fun 30th birthday celebration at a couple of wineries south of Austin. Erika really knows how to celebrate birthdays, she celebrated her 30th all month!Erika & Lori at Mandola Winery- they are very generous with their tastings!
Angela, Erika & Lori
The group at Mandola, I guess Fred was taking the picture
Erika getting excited about her birthday cupcake!
Awesome view at the Driftwood winery

Buffalo Springs 70.3 and Ironman Coeur d'Alene Watch PartyWe couldn't be there in person so we watched online and on tv as our friends rocked the tough Buffalo Springs & Coeur d'Alene courses.
Nydia, Erika, Shayla, Kendra & Connor watching and cheering for our friends racingDel and Linda excited for our friends racing!Matt's finish
Amy jumping across the finish line!
Drew's finish, stupid leader board!

July 4th
Unfortunately, no pictures from the fourth. Patti had a great party! In her words "9 dogs, 13 people, 1 Adrian, 1 guitar, 24 mortars, and 1 tour de france = 1 Happy 4th of July!" I couldn't have said it better, although she did forget to mention Paul and Mandy's awesome food.