Our best bike ride yet! Almost ;-(

Hubby Todd, oldest son Joe and I again biked to New Glarus on Saturday.

It was a drop dead BEAUTIFUL August day in WI.  A 10 mile breeze out of the

north - 80 degrees and sunny.  Our plan for the day was to bike to New

Glarus, 26 miles.  Stop at the brewery for a couple of beers and some

pizza, then stop at the pet store where my son's girlfriend works, say hi

and then head back to Madison for a round trip of 52 miles.

Started the day drinking my favorite coffee - Bike Fuel, from Just Coffee a

local Roaster.

Remember last time we biked to New Glarus we biked through a downpour just

before arriving at the brewery.  Nothing like that on Saturday.  We cruised

the whole way there in beautiful weather.  We again got off the bike path

and took a couple of really big hills into the brewery - they were just as

steep as last time  ;-)  but not getting drenched made for a much nicer

ride.  The brewery has a pizza company visit the location a couple of

weekends a month and Todd had looked at the events calendar and said that

stone fired pizza would be there on Saturday.  Well he was off by a day,

they were there on Sunday.  Knowing that the local Subway was only a short

bike ride into town, we sent Joe into town to pick up a couple of subs.

After devouring our sub's and enjoying a couple of beers, we headed back

down the hill and into town, stopping at the pet store to say hi to Joe's

girlfriend and then proceeded to the fudge shop to pick up some Jalapeno

Fudge . . . it is really yummy . . .  you take a bite and it is

chocolate . . chocolate . . chocolate . . . and then . . . spicy!   Finally

ready to hit the trail and head back to Madison.  We again got to walk

through the tunnel and continued through the small town of Bellville and

towards Madison.  Both down and back we try to draft off each other as much

as possible.  Going to New Glarus, we were averaging close to 17 miles an

hour - since we are using a mountain bike(Joe), a cross over (Todd) and a

commuter (Linda) bike over the crushed stones / dirt / gravel . . . that

seems like a pretty good pace.  Coming back we were averaging close to 15

miles an hour, with a direct head wind.  Just about 10 miles from Madison,

Todd, who was directly behind me, crossed over and hit my rear tire with

his front time.  I felt a jerk - but kept going, while he did not.  He took

quite a tumble in the brush, landing hard on his right shoulder.  We

stopped and went back to him, leaving him rest for a little while.  Then we

had to decide what to do - he was able to move his arm, but said that it

hurt quite a bit - but he thought he could bike.  We hopped back on the

bikes and stopped a couple of times to check things out.  His shoulder

continued to get tighter and more painful - so once we got to a cross road,

he stopped and waited while Joe and I continued back to the car.  Joe

helped me load my bike up and then I headed back to pick up Todd and take

him to the Emergency Room.  After a wait in the waiting room, a wait in the

examination room, a wait to see the Dr., a wait for the X-rays and another

wait for the Dr to return . . . the diagnosis was a broken collarbone.

They put the arm in a sling and sent us home.  Just so that you don't think he 

was drunk!  He doesn't like beer and only had a couple of sips of my beer!  I 

said that maybe he should have had more to drink because it would have 

relaxed him when he went flying off of his bike!

So while the ride started off GREAT and we were all having a good time -

Todd is done with biking for awhile.  Hoping the healing goes well.  I was

getting use to having someone to bike with - it was nice and I was very

proud of him for making the 50+ miles, especially with about 5 of them with

a broken collarbone.

On RUNNING note - I missed my Sunday morning run.  Just too tired after

spending the evening in the ER.  Since Monday is a rest day, I thought

about running my long run this morning - but then I would have to adjust

the other runs during the week - So I followed the plan this morning and

rested.  I might pick up an extra run over the long Labor Day weekend next

week.  Tuesday morning is scheduled for repeats . . . 5 X 1000 meters with

2 min rest between.  I will start with 2 miles with Sophie - drop her off

and head back out for my 3+ miles of repeats.  While I have done repeats

before, I usually do shorter, 400 meter repeats - I'll see how I do with

these longer repeats.

The Haunted Hustle on October 29th was my next 1/2 marathon and I wanted to

train pretty hard for it especially since I had so many hamstring /

piriformis issues over the summer and wasn't able to get the training miles

called me Friday afternoon and asked me if I wanted to join her and her

daughter at their Florida condo over the last week of October for about 5

day of relaxing at the ocean - of course this falls right over the weekend

of the Haunted Hustle.  I told her I would think about it and would let her

know today.  Dah!  Although I really wanted to run in the Haunted Hustle -

it was a really fun run last year - it isn't like I was going to win the

race - there will be other runs.  I am heading to Florida for a mini

vacation - October 26 - Oct 31.  Looking at replacing the Haunted Hustle

with the ZOOMA Lake Geneva 1/2 marathon, HERE on October 22nd.

Stay tuned

Enjoy the moment!