The MS Ride and Number Seven

Half way to completing list item number seven. Saturday was my annual MS ride. This marks year six. I am sure I have talked about it a lot so I will only say this, my riding experiences haven’t always been positive (check out what I'm talking about here and here).

Joni and I at the start of the race

This year was a good one though. I rode with my friend Joni. She is so fun. We rode 40 miles through the beautiful Cache Valley and chatted about travel, boys, bikes, work, boys, bike pains and even tried to come up with names for our team. We have decided next year to create a team in her honor. Joni has MS and has been doing this ride for the last four years.  Next year you might see us sporting our team jerseys for team "Smedium" (sometimes you are not small or medium and you need a in-betweener) or "Hunt for the Cure" (sadly it might be taken) or something else awesome, but definitely not something lame like "Team Joni."

Four years and she still smiles

Six years and counting

Participation medals are the best

Tri This

Two years ago my friend Marne convinced me to compete in my first ever triathlon the Salem Spring Triathlon. And somehow she was able to convince me again this year. The only photographic evidence we have of the race was the finish line photo from Race Day photography. Marne, Billy and Brian ran with me across the finish line so that we would have a group photo for the event.

It was a really good race. I was disappointed in my swim (again). This time not because I was scared about putting my head in the water, but because I had only gone swimming once before the race and I was just really tired. I was able to make up time with shorter transitions as well as improving my bike and run times to come in overall 2 minutes faster than my previous year's time.
I couldn't have expected better since I only went swimming once, biking a handful of times (mostly mountain biking) and ran a dozen times.  That isn't very good training. I have signed up for an olympic length tri which is double the length of a sprint tri (1 mile swim, 25 mile bike and 6.2 mile run). The olympic tri held at Yuba Lake later this summer will be more difficult and I will have to train.  Therefore, training started Monday and I'm going to be really dedicated to it.