At least there wasn't poison ivy.

Coming off the high of the recital, Alyssa and I set out to to do a long ride the C&O Canal Towpath. The C&O is a completely flat ride, so I knew we'd be able to log some miles on it with relative ease. We started in Brunswick, MD and rode in the direction of DC, figuring we'd turn around when we reached 25 miles so we could get in 50 miles.

The ride started out fine. It was bumpier than a regular road ride and I had some concerns about the path being muddy with all the rain we've had this summer, but it turned out to be fairly dry. Because of where we started and the direction we were heading, there weren't a ton of people out. We passed several people in the opposite direction, but it took us a while to encounter anyone heading in the same direction we were. We came up behind a trail master at one point and ended up passing him and his riding companion. We kept a nice pace, but at no time were we flying.

Around the fifth or sixth mile, we came up behind a couple who were riding next to each other. This would be fine if there weren't any other cyclists around, but there we were behind them. They knew we were behind them, too, but the man made no move to get over. In short, he was kind of a jerk. But, not wanting to seem impatient or rude, Alyssa and I slowed down and stayed behind them for a bit before we finally couldn't take it anymore and called out, "On your left!" and rang our bells. Well, Alyssa rang her bell. I honked my horn. Safely around them, we picked up the pace to about 12MPH and were really making time. However, I found myself getting ridiculously hungry so we pulled off to the side of the path and enjoyed some peanuts and cookies. While we snacked, the couple passed us. Alyssa and I lamented that we'd probably have to pass this clueless couple again and finished up our snacks. With little exertion, we caught up to the couple. Yet again, the man was riding next to the woman and giving no indication that he intended to get over. It was very, very annoying.

I have this thing about inconveniencing other people. I hate it. I go out of my way to make things easier for everyone. It's just my nature. And, honestly, I'm a novice rider, but I would never ride so cluelessly. There are cycling rules, but there are also just common-sense, human kindness rules. This guy clearly did not care about either type of rule. Had I been the woman, I would have called out to my companion that he needed to get his tail over so people could go by, but she clearly didn't see the need.

Alyssa and I - again not wanting to look like impatient jerks - pedaled slowly behind them. Alyssa rode a good 50-60 feet back and I was another 15-20 feet behind her, so there was plenty of space between all of us. As I looked to my left, I noticed a pair of sunglasses on the trail. I had just enough time to think "Oh, someone lost their glasses" before I computed that Alyssa had slammed on her brakes and had come to a very quick stop. I realized that I was going to slam into her. Hard. As I slammed into her, of course I knew I was going to fall off my bike. Again.

We've been watching the Tour de France and I had just asked Alyssa how the riders manage to unclip from their pedals so quickly when they get into accidents. Alyssa explained that the cycling shoes were meant to come undone upon impact, sort of the way ski boots work, so it just happened without them having to think about it. Having never gone skiing in my life, I had to take her word for it, but knowing how hard it was to get unclipped during my previous falls, I was dubious.

I shouldn't have been. Alyssa knows her stuff. I hit her so hard that my feet snapped right out of my pedals! I didn't even have to think about it. I was a little bit relieved, actually, as I hit the ground like a sack of flour, that at least I wouldn't be falling while attached to my bike. It definitely fell on me, but falling without the bike feels much better than falling with it. I lay on the ground for a few seconds, moaning and cussing like a sailor, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

As I stood up, I realized that the clueless woman in front of us had gone back behind me to pick up her sunglasses. She said not one word to either of us as she retrieved them from the path. She just calmly picked them up, walked back toward her bike, and started her ride back up. She had just caused a bike accident over her $5 pair of sunglasses and she acted like she had nothing to do with it. Nope, just gonna pick up her glasses and get back to riding. See ya, suckers!

Alyssa and I were both stunned by her behavior. Had the situation been reversed, I would have been falling all over myself to make sure that the person was ok - even if I didn't think it was my fault! Even if, technically, the accident wasn't her fault, I still think it's just the decent thing to do to show some compassion and concern for a fellow cyclist. Of course, we tried to rationalize her behavior. Maybe she didn't speak English. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she has no concept of propriety. I don't know. Frankly, it was stunning.

It is only with a little bit of shame that I report both Alyssa and I yelled down the trail to the woman. Alyssa said "I hope your sunglasses are ok! I'd hate for anything to have happened to them. We're fine - thanks for checking!", while I pathetically stood and cried and yelled who knows what. A runner came by while Alyssa was yelling and assumed we were yelling at him, to which Alyssa said, "NO, you're fine runner dude!" If I hadn't been in pain, it would have been pretty funny. And, as is my default reaction, I was angry. I reached into my jersey pocket to find that our digital camera was broken. The lens was permanently stuck out. We've had it for a couple of years and it has done a yeoman's job, so its demise was particularly upsetting. It was the perfect size for putting in my pocket or my jersey. RIP, Casio Exilim. You will be missed.

After assessing my bumps and bruises and determining nothing was broken, we decided we should turn back around. I was in pain and unbelievably angry. I think had we continued on the path and come across that couple, I would have had a hard time not shoving her off of her bike. I know that's awful.

Oh, and Alyssa was fine. Neither of us is exactly sure what I hit when I slammed into her, but she was fine. She doesn't have a mark on her or her bike.

I'll close this with two pictures, taken with my camera phone. You know, because that dumb woman caused me to break my real camera.

The bruise, 4 days later. I can assure you the bruise is very large, as I have gigantic thighs:




Alyssa tightened my seat in the parking lot before we left. She was tightening it since it was loosened from the last time I fell. Unfortunately, she now has to tighten it again as my fall loosened it once more.




This weekend we're riding from the Grosvenor Metro station into DC. I can't wait to report back on that one.

Thank you!

Alyssa and I were blown away by the number of people who showed up to make the Team Athena Benefit Recital such a success. Close to 75 friends and family members were in attendance! With their contributions, we were able to raise $782 to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Wow!

If you weren't there, you really missed out on something special. Alyssa gave an unbelievably beautiful performance and friends who aren't the biggest classical music fans came away from it saying how much fun they had. Those who love classical music said to me, "It's like I was listening to a professional recording!" Always her own harshest critic, even Alyssa had to admit she sounded pretty darn good. Of course, I am far from impartial when it comes to being a fan of Alyssa's playing, but this was probably the best I've ever heard her. You would never have guessed that Alyssa hadn't put on a recital in eight years. She knocked everyone's socks off.

I recorded the concert on our Flip video camera, so we hope to have some video up in a couple of days. In addition to that, we'll also have a professional grade recording thanks to our amazing fellow team member Whitney, who taped the performance on her video camera. We should also have CDs available at some point when we get the audio file from the church. Many thanks to Scott Norris and Turner Stokes for being our sound and tech guys for the afternoon. We couldn't have done it without them.

At this point in our lives, we have many friends with children and we were jazzed to have so many little ones in attendance! The "rocking room" was packed to the gills. Those are going to be some cultured kids.

After cleaning up the church, we headed home to prepare for a celebratory dinner out with Alyssa's mom and dad. As we talked about the recital during dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to thank the two of them for bringing such an amazing, beautiful and ridiculously talented person into existence. So I thanked them then. I cannot imagine my life without Alyssa. She brings so much beauty into the world.

So, friends, thank you. Thank you for traveling so many miles. Thank you for spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon inside. Thank you for giving so generously of your time and of your bank accounts. Mostly, just thank you for being a part of our lives. We are so blessed to know you all.

The Team Athena Benefit Recital is this Saturday!

Alyssa is still going to write about the ride we took a couple of weeks ago that made me sob on a country road in Frederick County, but until then...

This Saturday, July 11th at 3PM is the Team Athena Benefit Recital at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick. The only team member actually doing anything for this recital is Alyssa, but that's a good thing. You do not want to hear me attempting to play any musical instrument. Or sing. Well, I actually do a pretty good impression of Cher and Mary J. Blige, but this probably isn't the venue for that. I'll save that for karaoke.

Anyway, if you're in the area and don't have anything to do, I know Alyssa would love to have more than just five or six people listening to her awesome violinist self. Best of all? Admission is FREE! Well, we obviously welcome donations to our team for the Livestrong Challenge, but if you just want to come and hear beautiful music, that works just as well.

Who: Team Athena
What: Team Athena Benefit Recital with Alyssa Boxhill on the violin
Where: The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, 4880 Elmer Derr Rd, Frederick, MD 21701
When: Saturday, July 11th at 3PM
Why: To raise money for Team Athena, a bunch of awesome women participating in the 2009 Livestrong Challenge in Philly(August 23rd)

We hope to see you there!

If you can't make it to the recital, you can still donate. Every time you donate, you up your chances of winning an Alyssa Boxhill designed Team Athena cycling jersey! They are SWEET.

Now for something completely different

Just kidding, I hope. I think Tonya's done a very nice job setting the tone for our training blog, and I hope my inaugural post doesn't stray too far from that.

Two weekends ago we rode to church together for the first time. It's a roughly 19 mile ride round trip and among the hilliest we had done so far. I had ridden there alone three times previously and knew there were going to be some tough hills to tackle, but I also knew we had two different route options, one significantly less painful than the other and a good alternative to take home.

We were supposed to get going in time to make it to the church service at 10am but got a late start thanks to me taking a necessary potty break (heh!). Since I had some paperwork to drop off at the church office for our team benefit recital next weekend, the trip wasn't going to be a wasted one even if we missed the service.

It was a quiet ride as we made our way out of town, passing shopping centers and corporate office parks. The wind was picking up in the corn fields as we turned off New Design Road onto Elmer Derr, for the tougher of our two route options to get to church. Tonya remarked that she didn't think we'd ever done a ride where we weren't being buffeted by headwinds and crosswinds, but these seemed harsher than what we had experienced together in the past. Of course the wind drained away all our momentum as we hit the bottom of that first big hill.


Nothing but corn to stop the wind

I called out, "Go go Granny Gear," shifted onto my small ring and pedaled furiously at a whopping 5mph—might have been a little faster than that, but it didn't feel like it. Thankfully there was little traffic going in either direction while we were battling this hill, although another cyclist had passed us earlier, shortly after we turned onto Elmer Derr. I didn't want to think about how little effort it had probably taken him to get up this hill and how far ahead of us he was by then.

I got to the top and pulled off into a gravel driveway to wait for Tonya. What I didn't know at the time was that she hadn't known to switch onto her smaller chainring and was attempting to ride up that hill with half as much gear assistance as she could have had. I learned this later, after we went up a (tortuously long and) more gradual hill alongside Route 15 that I'd kind of forgotten to warn her about in advance. Between the two was a short, steep winding descent that I wish, in hindsight, I'd had the guts to go screaming down without riding my brakes to maintain my speed for that next gradual incline.


Paying the price for being timid on the descent

We had a short stretch left on Elmer Derr road before reaching the church with another short, steep slope to contend with right before we got there. I told Tonya I'd fallen there the first time I rode to the church when I stopped halfway up to catch my breath and toppled over attempting to clip back in while in a very low gear. I'm sure it didn't inspire much confidence in her, but she took the rest of Elmer Derr like a champ.


Tonya looking unimpressed with the hill I forgot to warn her about

We rolled up to the church's main entrance sweaty, smelly and gasping for breath in time for some friends and fellow congregants to arrive outside and not recognize us right away in helmets, sunglasses and jerseys. Tonya stayed outside to chat with them as they were leaving the church while I took care of my paperwork and caught the tail end of a meeting that had completely slipped my mind. Oops!


Our lovely church

The alternate route back, though not flat, was merciful in comparison and I'm happy we chose to go back that way. It took us through a high-traffic area where impatient and most likely confused drivers swarmed around us; we were both honked at and got separated crossing over Rt. 15. I foolishly hadn't checked to make sure Tonya was close behind me before getting onto the overpass and realized, only after navigating the worst of these congested streets and seeing her nowhere, that I was carrying her phone in my pocket and hadn't exactly told her which way I was taking us home. She got through the heavily trafficked area and we joined back up at an intersection, calmed ourselves down (I felt terrible for leaving her to navigate that mess by herself!) and continued onward to the Market Street Deli, where our order was handled with quickness and precision and we treated ourselves to delicious bagels for breakfast.



Yum!

Next up, in a post all its own, our Mountaindale adventure from last weekend...

I'm waiting on Alyssa to write.

I've been wanting to write, but Alyssa assured me she would contribute her first post to the blog, so I waited. And I waited. And I'm still going to wait some more, but I just wanted to say that we've been training.

We did a ride the weekend before last out to our church(19 miles or so round trip) and then this past weekend we rode up to Thurmont from Frederick(32 hateful miles round trip). I won't give too much away because I don't want to steal Alyssa's thunder, but I'll just say that I might have cried a little bit.

So, let's put the pressure on Foxy Boxy to finally write something!

Two Covered Bridges, Multiple Scabs

It's been so long since I've written, I bet you thought I'd given up, eh? O ye of little faith!

The weather has been, again, fairly abysmal. It seems like every time we have an abundance of time, the rain comes with it. Despite this, we have managed to get in some riding. Ok, Alyssa rides just about every day. I'm not quite that good about getting on the bike, but I'm working on it.

Last Saturday morning, we did an almost 13 mile ride up around Thurmont, MD with our friends Whitney & Araminta. Well, Whitney was able to ride. Araminta's bike was not working correctly, so she operated the sag wagon. This mostly involved keeping traffic flowing around us and blasting music to help with motivation. She did a stellar job!

Whitney was responsible for mapping out the route for us and it was a really nice ride. We got to see two of three covered bridges located in Frederick County, the Roddy Creek and the Loy's Station. Even if we hadn't gotten to see the bridges, the ride itself was beautiful.









I surprised myself by really going after one of the hills we encountered. I guess I figured I'd rather get the hill over with than prolong the agony. And I didn't want to lose my steam and fall over. Why would I fall over, you ask?

Because I was wearing these shoes for the first time with my new bike and its clipless pedals. I was a bit apprehensive about wearing cycling shoes because I was convinced I would constantly forget to clip out of the pedals and fall over all the time, but I figured I needed to suck it up and go for it. To my surprise and delight, I found myself enjoying clipping in during our ride. At least until I fell. That falling thing? Not a lot of fun. Alyssa assured me that falling a couple of times is just a rite of passage, so I didn't feel like too much of a loser. I think I did so gloriously and spectacularly, with lots of profanity.

We didn't take a picture of me lying on the ground after the first fall, but I did make sure to take a picture of my banged up hand. You just don't realize how much you bend your hand until it's excruciating to do so. I know it doesn't look like much, but it didn't tickle, that's for sure. The falling itself was a fairly zen moment. Time slowed down and I knew I wasn't going to be able to unclip in time. Once I started tipping, I just resigned myself to it. I knew it was going to hurt, but thought maybe flopping would lessen the impact. I can't say that it did, but the pain of landing on the ground was worse than I imagined it would feel as I contemplated it on my way down.





Then, because I like to enhance my misery, I fell again. This time I really don't know what happened. My left knee was the first part to hit the ground. I made Alyssa take a picture of me lamenting this awful occurrence, but only after she moved my bike from the road. After all, I can get hit by a car, but not my bike.





A week later, I'm mostly healed. I've been picking the scabs on my hands because that's just how I do and the knee is still kinda weird looking, but I'm no worse for the wear. I'm hoping falling will be a rare occurrence, or at least that I don't break anything until after the Challenge.

After we completed our ride, Whitney & Araminta drove us down to the Country Kitchen to eat a delicious breakfast. Alyssa had toast, bacon & eggs and half of my pancakes because she has a tapeworm. Araminta invited us to try some of her Scrapple, as we had never tried it before. I will try just about anything once, so I took a bite. Verdict? Not really my thing. I'll stick to sausage or bacon. Mmm, bacon.

Surly time!

My new bike came in! Did I even mention I was getting a new bike? Probably not. It wasn't totally necessary that I get a new one, as I was doing ok on my Trek 7200, but I was complaining about the riding position to Alyssa and she suggested that I might want to look into a bike more suitable for road riding. I wasn't really sure what I wanted, but after some thoughtful consideration, I decided to go with the bike Alyssa loves and has been riding for almost a year now.

Introducing...





My new Surly Cross Check! Honestly, given my natural state of being, there isn't a more appropriate bike company from which I could buy a bike. Surly is my middle name.

As you can see, it is black. Tom at The Bicycle Escape - our bike shop of choice - made it look awesome for me with the blue accent color gear I chose. I picked out handlebar tape, the water bottle cages, and a righteous Honka Hoota horn. I actually think Alyssa covets my horn.

Tom is a beast and had it ready for me to pick up in a week, so we headed to The Bicycle Escape on Saturday afternoon. I thought I might ride from the store to the house, but those plans were thwarted by the beating my body took from doing the Race for the Cure 5k in the morning and then mowing a friend's yard after that. My feet and hands were covered in blisters, so we just loaded the bike into the truck and brought it home. We planned on getting a good night's rest and then getting up to do a morning ride. We got the good night's rest part taken care of fairly easily and we were up plenty early, but our plan to ride 10 miles to church was thwarted when we came downstairs to discover Alyssa's rear tire had gone flat overnight. Because she is a superstar, Alyssa put her bike down on the kitchen floor and changed her flat in a pretty short amount of time, but it was still too late for us to make it to church on time. We reconfigured our game plan and took off for a shorter ride around town. Actually, it was a way shorter ride - only 3 miles - and it was broken up by stopping for a bagel, but it gave me a chance to just get on the bike and try things out.

Riding the Surly is definitely going to be an adjustment. It's a whole new riding position and getting started is a bit more wobbly than on the Trek, but for my first ride, I was pleased. I wasn't brave enough to try the clipless pedals today, figuring that riding a new bike would be enough of an adjustment for one day, but on our next big ride I'm going to suck it up and give them a go. The worst that can happen is that I fall on my face.

Hm, I kind of don't want to fall on my face.

Have bike, will travel

We made a trip to New York this weekend to celebrate Alyssa's Granny's 90th birthday.





Knowing we needed to get in at least a little bit of a ride, we took the bikes along with us. Despite having used the car rack multiple times, we still agonized over making sure the rack was on safely and securely. The reality is it was probably on fine from the outset, but we always have visions of the bikes falling off the back of the car and skidding down the interstate behind us so we spend many minutes pulling tighter on the straps and pushing down on the rack to make sure it's not going anywhere. Safety first!

We got a very late start leaving Frederick on Friday night and didn't arrive at Alyssa's mom and dad's house until after 1:30AM, but I made us get up early on Saturday to go for our ride. Ok, fine: maybe I was just excited to finally wear my sweet new cycling shorts. Jealous?





I never in my life thought I would willingly wear spandex, but there you have it.

So, we rode through the streets of Alyssa's home town - Bronxville, represent! - in order to get to the Bronx River Pathway. It was a nice ride to get to the trail, too. It was downhill and traffic was light because it was early in the morning. I'd say we were on the trail by 9AM. Oh, and let me clarify. By trail I mean a lovely, wide, paved, mixed-use path that ambled along the Bronx River under a canopy of trees. This was definitely more a pleasure cruise than any heavy duty training ride, but we did get to work on shifting and handled several short hills, so it wasn't a waste of time by any stretch.

We took time to stop and appreciate cuteness.





We also took time to stop and pose with construction equipment.









I can't even explain the complete idiocy that overcomes us, but we have a good time.





I continue to be amazed by the number of people who don't wear helmets. Like putting on my seat belt when I get into the car, putting on a helmet is automatic. I just want to try to avoid having my brains scraped from the pavement and figure wearing a helmet is a good way to keep that from happening. I was also surprised by those who walked along the path completely oblivious to the fact that it's a shared use path and, well, they needed to share. Here's a tip to those not in the know: walking in the middle of the path with your headphones up so high that you can't hear people behind you is a bad idea.

Remember how I said the trip into Bronxville from Alyssa's mom and dad's house was downhill? That means it was uphill on the way home. Funny how that works. I knew it was going to be unpleasant based upon my experience from the many times I've been forced to walk back to their house from the Metro North station after we've spent an exhausting day in the city. I thought it might be a little more pleasant on a bike, but I was wrong. I had to get off my bike and walk it up the steepest of the hills, huffing and puffing and dropping copious amounts of profanity the whole way. Once we got up that hill, I asked if that was the worst of it, to which Alyssa responded, "Yeah. No. Well...I think so." It turns out there was another hill we had to tackle, but it ended up not being nearly as painful as the first and I managed to stay on my bike. I still huffed and puffed and dropped copious amounts of profanity. I know this is "good medicine" seeing as the Challenge will have us making an overall elevation climb of over 4000 feet, but I am a baby. Alyssa has told me we're going to have to do hill sprints, but I've been pushing that thought out of my head. Why can't every ride be downhill or, at the very least, flat? You Floridians don't know how good you have it.

I rode my bike to work again last Friday and then again yesterday. It was pretty uneventful, except I was able to see what appears to be a groundhog family right outside of Fort Detrick. That cuteness is one reason to keep me motivated to ride to work.

One Covered Bridge Loop...minus the covered bridge

We got up early on Saturday morning to do a 17 mile ride known as the One Covered Bridge Loop. Presumably, this means we would have seen one covered bridge. This ended up not being the case because we missed a turn, but we had a great ride anyway! We started out from our house right at 7:30AM, so there were few people on the road at that hour. We passed a few other cyclists and joggers on our ride, but not too many. Even though we counted this as a training ride, we weren't trying to set any speed records, so we stopped and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery. Frederick County farmland is beautiful and, thankfully, wasn't all that smelly during our ride.

I'm totally getting some sporty sunglasses so I can stop wearing my fashiony ones. The funny thing is I used to only have sport sunglasses, but, uh, I broke all of them.




The lovely Frederick County countryside




I really enjoy the weird things I see when I'm on my bike. This time, the weird thing I saw was an old man using a metal detector on an elementary school playground. As this is an area with a lot of history, chances are the old man was searching for old bullets and other Civil War artifacts. However, I like to amuse myself by thinking that he was actually prospecting for a 1st grader's lunch money.

I finally busted out last year's birthday present from Alyssa: my Garmin Forerunner 305. It's an all-round awesome device and I loved being able to look down to my wrist and see how far we'd gone and just how fast we were going. Or how slow. Ok, how slowly I was going. I won't share that data here since it will make us look terribly pathetic, but once we get some less embarrassing times, I'll share those.

Forerunner, y'all!




Alyssa in her Team Fatty gear




Lying down in the grass/tick patch




We were on our way home when I spotted this turtle in the middle of the road. It's not a road with constant traffic, but there's enough where the turtle could have gotten smashed. So, I picked up up, avoided getting turtle pee on me, and put it across the road. I just hope I put it in the direction it wanted to go.




Alyssa and I are keeping our fingers crossed that we get to do this ride when we're in New York for her granny's birthday this weekend. I'll let you know!

Ride of Silence

On Wednesday night, Alyssa and I participated in the Ride of Silence. This was part of a worldwide ride in honor of cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roads. The whole ride was conducted at a slow pace, paying special attention to the rules of the road and using only hand signals with the other riders.

Alyssa and I rode to a middle school that's about 1.5 miles from our house to meet the other riders. Our ride leader went over the rules of the ride and read a statement about why we were doing it before turning it over to all of us for introductions. Some people on the ride had lost friends in bike accidents, so they mentioned that with their introductions.

I was a little self-conscious starting out. This was my first group ride and these were cycling people. Alyssa is a cycling person.





You know who I'm talking about. With the exception of one other woman, they were all in their cycling jerseys and their spandex and their pedal clips.





I rolled up in my t-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers looking like a total n00b. I might end up being a cycling person one day, but I'm not there yet. I should say, though, that everyone was very nice.

Once we started riding, I loosened up and enjoyed myself. The ride was actually very relaxing. There is usually so much noise and chatter in my everyday life that being absolutely quiet for an hour and a half was a welcome deviation. We rode all over downtown Frederick and the immediate outskirts of downtown at a nice pace. I was getting a little worried toward the end of the ride because it took a little longer than expected due to stop lights and traffic, so it was getting to the point where I didn't want to be out on the road on a bike. Alyssa has lights all over her bike, but I don't yet. Fortunately, we ended the ride while it was still light enough for us to haul ass home.

So, that's my first group ride! I'll write later about the training ride we did this morning.