this past week was a lost cause as far as biking went. Last week Saturday it poured rain and the ride was cancelled so I went to spin class instead. Sunday was nicer but I could feel I was coming down with something so I just did a short ride around Point Defiance. I figured the hill practice was good for me. The rest of the week was a dead loss as I huddled on the couch with a fever, aches and pains and loss of appetite (something that almost never happens with me). Tuesday was the worst day and things started to get better after that. By Saturday I felt I was able to ride again. The weather turned out to be beautiful. Our ride was scheduled to be about 70 miles - Kent, Auburn, Black Diamond, Enumclaw, Mud Mountain Dam and then return. It did not take me long into the ride to realize I was still feeling the effects of the flu. I just could not get up the energy to go faster than about 9-10 mph. (Lately I had been riding 12-13 mph). By the time I reached the sag stop at Black Diamond I figured that was as far as I was going. So after a brief rest Russ and I headed back. Instead of 70 miles I only did about 40 miles and that was enough for the day. This week I have to work hard on building my stamina back up so I can do next week's 70 plus miles. There are only a few more weeks of training left before Tucson.

Yesterday's ride was another long one. One person told me 58 miles and another said 56. There were lots of hills but I managed to ride up every one of them - a first for me. There were 2 hills in particular that almost did me in. The first one was a long one out of Woodinville. My coach who was watching me said that there were a couple of times he thought I was going to fall over I was going so slow. The second one was towards the end of the day as we approached our last sag stop. I was very rapidly running out of steam and I still am not sure how I made it. When I got off my bike I had to hold on to it for a minute as I was dizzy from the effort. Sitting down for a few minutes and eating something gave me the energy I needed to finish the ride. It also helped that the coach took me a different way than the others which had a much more gradual hill. I think the prettiest part of the ride was the ride down the hill into Snohomish with its view of the mountains and the valley. The stop at the bakery in Snohomish was also nice.