The Smart Ride 2008

This past weekend I did The Smart Ride which is a 165 mile ride from Miami to Key West. The ride is a charity ride that raises money for Aids charities of Broward County, Fla and each rider is responsible for raising a minimum of $1200. This year I think there was about 400 riders who were treated to an awesome event that was well ran and supported and had two fabulous days of great weather (with the exception of a pesky little head wind) riding.

Day one of the ride (Friday) is a 100 mile jaunt from Miami to Hawks Cay which is just above Marathon. The group I was riding with was my brother Dan, His wife Leah and our friend Tony. We also had my daughter Kate in a chase car and she was there to support if needed but mostly to give us a ride back to Miami when the event was over. We started out a little later than the rest of the riders as I had some unfinished business related to a huge eggplant parm dinner on Thursday night but we quickly moved up the pack after we started as there is a huge amount of diversity in the type of bike people ride for this event...and I mean huge. We were all on road bikes but there was a fair amount of people on hybrids and mountain bikes and I even heard one guy say he just bought his bike the week before for $100. So don't think moving quickly to the front of the pack was anything exceptional. We blew past the first rest stop which was only at mile 12 and set our sites on the second which was around mile 30. The start of the ride is a bit slow as there is a lot of turns, stop lights and traffic but once past rest stop 2 we got onto Card Sound Rd headed for Homestead and things started to click. We settled into a pace of around 19mph and hammered out that section pretty well. Along the way we picked up about 25 people who hung in all the way to rest stop 3, which was also lunch. We rolled through that stop quickly and when we were ready to go none of our new friends were done with lunch so the four of us took off on our own. The second half of the ride was exceptionally fun and relatively uneventful. We kept a nice steady pace the whole way and no one had any significant problems. We finished day one in around 6.5 hrs (including stops) with none of us really worse for the wear.

After the day one ride we enjoyed Hawks Cay resort for awhile using the pool, hot tub and bar. The afternoon was super relaxing and we ended up skipping the official ride dinner and traveling to Burdines in Marathon for the best fries on the planet and some yummy Key West Ale. A good time was had by all.

Day two was 65 miles and it started out a little rough as I shredded a tire at mile nine. The wind had picked up significantly from day 1 and I sent the others ahead while I waited for Kate to show up with a spare tire. this proved to be somewhat of a mistake because it took Kate a lot longer then I thought to show up so I was farther behind them then other times I had tried this. I changed out the tire and proceeded to chase them down. The real issue came when their was a miscommunication between Kate and the others and she ended up telling me to skip the next water stop and continue the chase. i was a little concerned about this because I had been riding hard for over and hour by myself, it was hot, it was windy and I was almost out of water. I continued on anyway thinking I could slow up and get some water from them once I caught them. However, after another 45 mins of riding i saw Kate again and she informed me I needed to slow down...I was a head of the others. Apparently, they had stopped at the rest area and i had past them when they were enjoying a rest and some nice cold water (which I had known of by then). In any event I waited they caught me and we continued on. The other significant event of the day happened around mile 45 when a group that was just a head of us crashed with one of their riders flying into the road in front of a 40ft motor home. That was the finest piece of evasive driving i have ever seen as the motor swerved to miss the rider. That would have been nasty if he hadn't reacted so quickly!!! We stopped to make sure they were OK and with the exception of a banged up elbow and some major hamburger looking road rash they were OK so we pressed on. The heat and wind had taken its toll at this point and we limped in to the finish but all in all had a great day.

Following the ride we loaded up and headed straight back to Burdines for more fries and Key West Ale. Really good stuff.

Things to remember from this ride:

1. Tony sitting on the cooler in the airport parking lot with his "water bottle"
2. TomTom is a bitch who won't shut up
3. Kates BDAY dinner
4. Egg cake for breakfast sucks
5. Day one as a whole was the best day of riding we have had as a group.
6. Card Sound road paceline
7. Leah on my wheel over channel five bridge...what a stud
8. 21 bikes in the rack before us..how can a group of misfits like us be finished before so many people
9. Floaters at the pool
10. Fries at Burdines
11. cold egg sandwhiches for breakfast also suck
12. Don't stop at the rest stop
13. the motor home evasive move
14. the last 20 were TOUGH
15. fries at Burdines
16. Gator Game in the "spa" (AKA the hot tub that is not hot and has no jets)
17. friends, good food, good drinks and great riding

Thats all for now

October Recap

I can hardly believe a month has gone by and I have not posted a word. This is going to be harder than I thought!!! However, I am going to commit right now to setting aside time each week to update. It is going to be way to difficult to do this one month at a time.

The biggest news generated in October is I have, yet again, failed to qualify for Boston (missed by 6 minutes). As disappointing as this was I took away many positives from running the Columbus Marathon and it will go down as a very memorable experience. A mini race report would include spending the evening before with my son and his girlfriend. We had an early dinner with my wife and two friends who came to support. The three of them then departed for a hotel and Jerry and Jaime and I headed for Jerry's place. Sue and our friends were down as a kind of payback for my cheering for the cancer 3 day and I must say I was apprehensive having them there at first, but it really was the best!!! Spending the evening with Jerry and Jaime was a blast. We watched some football and went shopping at target. Thankfully, I talked Jerry out of buying me a pair of feet pajamas (although I will probably get them some day). Race morning was perfect. Clear and cool with only a light wind. I started the race with long sleeves and gloves but thru the shirt at mile one and the gloves at mile four. It was still a little cold but the only problem that presented was my hands were stiff and I had trouble working my bottles and grabbing water cups. No big deal though I would rather have it that temperature vs hot any day. Anyways, I had a great race through about mile 18. I had positioned myself around 200 yards in front of the 3:30 pace group and had hoped I could hold that spot. At mile 18 I had 3 minutes in the bank but could feel myself start to slow. I did everything I could to push through it but this was not one of those times. Oh well, live to fight another day. Positives for the day included, Sue/Sue/Mary cheering squad complete with signs. Jerry, Jaime and their friends had great half marathons. Jerry ran a 1:29 and Jaime, who I had trained, ran a 1:42 and took fifth in her age group. I had two other friends who ran who both qualified. All in all short of my goal, but a great day.

Also during October, I ran the Cuyahoga National Park fall challenge series. This is a series of five races on area trails that is absolutely fun, fun, fun!!! It is the first time I did it but will not be the last. It would take forever to provide all the details but a quick summary is that each week there is a different theme to the race. You don't know the theme or the distance until you get there so you have to be prepared for anything. As I think about this it really does deserve more detail in case some one ever reads this blog. I want everyone to know how fun this was. I will write it out in detail next post.

I also went to two weddings, my nieces and a friend of Sue's from work...both were a blast. Lots of eating drinking and dancing. My nieces wedding included staying in a hotel room next to my brother and his family...to much fun!!

Coming up in November I have the smart ride, a 165 mile ride from Miami to Key West, the fall challenge a half marathon in Strongsville, OH and the Cape Coral Florida Turkey Trot. Should be lots to write about.

Hope this finds everyone well.

That's all for now.