Yesterday, I drove up to Mesa and the Salt River to ride the bike course of the race I am doing on 1 October. I went with several TriGirls who are also racing that day. It was unbelievable. I don't know if I am going to make it through the race now that I have seen the course. I knew it was going to be hilly, but I didn't count on practically mountainous. I knew I was in trouble when, to get from the parking lot to the main road, I saw that you had to ride straight up 1.7 miles. The lake was in a basin and the incline to get out of the basin had to be 35 degrees. That was our warm up. Then we had the main course -- it was worse than the hill getting up to the main road. I have never ridden my bike on such long and steep hills. I had been hoping to do the whole race (the 1.2 mile swim and the 56 mile bike ride) in about 4 hours. Yesterday it took me 3:42:10 to do ONE loop of the bike course -- 28 miles. So, now I am hoping to do the bike section of the race in about 7 hours.

A couple of things happened while on the ride that were difficult to deal with. The first thing was that when I was almost at the end, I took a wrong turn and went straight down to the marina where the park ranger told me that I had to go back up and then another mile up the road, then make the turn. I came unglued going back up the 40 degree hill to the main road. This was about the 3 hour mark and I just lost it -- and cried and walked my bike up the hill. It was awful. I finally get up to the main road, get back on my bike, and go about 20 meters and another hill starts up. This hill was about a mile long and was about a 20 degree incline and there was no bike lane. Just about the middle point, some pimply teenage snot decides to get too close in his Honda CRV and yell crap out the window about me being on the same road as a car. It is a good thing he didn't stop. I had reached the point of no return -- I was tired, in pain, at the end of my rope emotionally as well as physically and this snot has the gall to yell at me while I am working my ass off riding my bike up the hill while he cruises on in his car??? It was a tough moment. I think this is where my heart rate shot up to 228 beats per minute. Thank God, soon after that, I made it to the top of the hill and then had my 1.7 mile downhill to the car.

Then I had a 3 hour drive home. I did have to pull over once to get myself together since I was falling asleep, but made it home by 4pm. Of course, what this means is that I raced in the door, and left 15 minutes later for church. While at church, I happened to look over at Andy only to see him picking his nose. While I am looking, he pulls out a major booger, inspects it, and then drops it on the ground. I am so appalled I don't even know where to begin on this one. Of course, all the little old ladies around us are watching this whole proceeding. I made him leave and go blow his nose, wash his hands, and bring a kleenex back to deal with what he had dropped. It was horrendous. We had several discussions about this throughout the rest of the evening. I haven't been that embarrassed in a long time.

The football game, according to Ron, went very well. The team did a great job and even blocked sometimes. They lost in the last 10 seconds when the other quarterback snuck around the line and went straight down the side of the field for a touchdown. I don't know if the guys even knew that they lost the game. They had a fantastic time and were thrilled to play -- all in all, a success!