I'm Not Gonna Lie...

I'm not gonna lie, the cold rainy days are starting to get to me.

Waiting in my car for the others to show up
to ride today, taking photos of my fendered-up bike.

I'm not gonna lie, I did have fun riding despite the conditions and the fact that I had to sit in my car with the heat on for a long time before I could bend my fingers to remove my bike helmet or shoes for the drive home.

Today's hearty crew. I'm wearing a shower cap under
a baseball cap under a bike helmet.

I purposely crappily cropped the screenshot
so that you'd know I stole this.
Look at the water around the pavilion.

As a frame of reference, this it the pavilion when
the water is at normal levels. It is not normally
an island in the river. This is from a ride in 2015.

I'm pretty impressed that we rode, given what
all the weather sites were accurately predicting.
But look! I got my passport jersey from the
MS Society. This is what I get for raising enough
money to do rides in other states. That's fun.
I like that they gave me this, in addition to
promising me that I won't have to
wait in lines for port-a-potties.

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't mind the 90-degree temps in Kentucky this weekend, although I missed two nice weekend days in Minnesota that would have been great for riding.

We toured Woodford Reserve, which
was very slick. We also toured a
tiny distillery in Bourbon County -
the only distillery in Bourbon County in
the past 100 years. It was tiny and cool.

Woodford. Check out all the bubbling
stuff that will eventually be bourbon.

Tons of huge barrels in the warehouse,
including some that are special editions.
At the small distillery, they use way
smaller barrels. Now I know why the
TTB/ATF regulations I saw about
getting rid of small barrels are causing
such a ruckus and I now know
more about Big Alcohol's nefarious ways.

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't take photos of the important stuff, like all the family members I saw at my cousin's wedding. But I never even shared photos of our trip to New Orleans five weeks ago.

New Orleans. April 2019.
I cannot resist mimicking statues. And my
eyes are demonstrating how much I liked this Bloody
Mary mix. So much, in fact, that I just ordered a box
of six bottles. It was good even without alcohol.
I ordered the crawfish sacks because I was
(obviously) super curious as well as the fact that
I have a juvenile sense of humor.

I'm not gonna lie, I thought that it would be painful to start reading Dune, as I promised my S-I-L and nephew I would do. I am really liking it. A lot.

I'm so happy to be back on a fiction kick
after reading all of the non-fiction
books that people gave me as gifts.
They were important books, but not
something I feel compelled to read during
all of my free moments.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm nervous about the MS150 in less than two weeks and the likelihood of cold rain. It just snowed in Duluth again recently. S.N.O.W. Camping out the night before the ride could be rather bone-chilling. Argh.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm grateful for all of the donations to the MS Society, but my team is behind on its goal of hitting $100,000 this year, our 10th anniversary year, so I'll gladly accept more of your generosity! http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/GoMaggieGo

Biking: The New Karate

“Karate is many things, but mainly it's about synergy, ebb and flow, trial and error, action and reaction, rhythm of life, progress . . .” 
― Soke behzad Ahmadi, Shorinjiryu Ryujin Kenpo


Sunday was the first of the four BikeMS events I'm doing this year. Watching the looming forecast, Alicia and I were texting each other: "Which route are you doing?" "Are waterproof socks really waterproof?" "Do you put nitrile gloves under or over your other full-fingered gloves?" "How many layers are you wearing?" And, "Why do we do this?"

We decided that MS doesn't take a break, people with MS don't have a choice about whether they're going to deal with it on a particular day, MS doesn't care if it is 40 degrees, rainy, and windy. And, so, neither were we.

Well, thankfully, the MS Society decided to cancel the long route due to potential flooding and then cancel the next-longest route due to the fact that hardly anyone would ride it and they didn't want to punish their volunteers. So, we did a fun, albeit cold, wet, windy short ride around the cities with our teammates Andy and Mike, running into some of our other teammates along the way: Carmen, who designs our team logos, and Saunya and her two children, who were wearing the most creatively designed garbage-bag-and-duct-tape rain gear.

Kelly, the woman in orange, volunteers for all
the rides. She's awesome.

Andy lives near me, so he and I decided to ride the 4 miles to the start of the bike ride. We were pretty chilly and wet when we got there, due to the fact that he got a flat tire roughly 1 mile from my house, but were surprised and happy to see that Alicia and Mike waited for us. (p.s. Why it can be good to ride with others: Andy inadvertently had packed the wrong type of tube, so needed mine. Plus, we were able to share some pump-pumping arm energy and each take a turn prying the edge of the tire over the rim.)

Andy, looking for his flat-fixing stuff.

All was better after the ride, because the MS Society had moved all of the post-ride events to inside the Surly brewery, instead of in the tents in the soggy field. We had donuts, beer, coffee, and pizza - - way more food than we needed for our caloric output, although I think I did use more calories shivering than biking.

Saunya and Alicia. Their energy and humor in one week
is equivalent to an entire lifetime of my energy
and humor. They make things fun.

So, this experience serves as a reminder that this could happen again, as it has on the MS150 and on the Ride Across Minnesota, and that I will survive - especially because it *should be* warmer during those rides and hopefully my Raynaudsy hands and feet will get a break. (Although with temps in the low 30s last night, I'm done trying to predict what is normal weather.) 

I also acquired a fun event t-shirt to add to my collection!

Cannot take selfies and smile. Too
hard to do both at the same time.

Here we go - - - BikeMS season is underway! Just a couple of weeks until the MS150! 

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/GoMaggieGo

(p.s. I've never done the Twin Cities Ride before, only the longer, multi-day rides. It's a great way for people who can't commit more than a few hours to make a difference in the fight against MS. It is sort of a one-off for our team: most of our riders just do the MS150, but we raised about $3000 for the MS Society with this ride (1/3 of which was raised by those little kids!), which isn't too shabby.)

Lucky, lucky me

I do not take for granted that tonight, after work, I grabbed my bike and:

• Rode to the lake at the end of the block
• Connected to the trail along the creek to Minnehaha Falls
• Met up with my friend Matt
• Rode along the Mississippi River to downtown
• Picked up concert tickets
• Rode over an iconic bridge over the Mississippi
• Connected to a road just for bikes and buses 
• Rode near a lake and then to the Capitol
• Rode through downtown St. Paul
• At dinner at a Korean restaurant with some good guidance from Matt
• Rode through Swede Hollow (one of my favorite nooks)
• Went to Lowertown St. Paul, split off from Matt, and got on a bike trail
• Rode along the Mississippi with great sunset views of downtown Minneapolis
• Crossed over the Mississippi
• Rode two miles on streets in lieu of along the creek

Stopped to turn my bike lights on and
a nice couple took a photo of me.
Strangers don't tell you when you're making
funny faces. But look!
Downtown and the Mississippi.

I stole a screenshot of Matt's photo of dinner.
Yum.

I live in the Minneapolis city limits. How great is that? I got to do one of my favorite things: night riding! How great is that? Also, as I was putting my bike away, my neighbor across the alley who I never see, Carlos, came and asked me if I'll take him on a bike ride sometime. Uh, okay!

My slight discomfort on my bike seat tonight (mostly due to, TMI, my underwear placement near my sitz bones) tells me that I need to keep on spending time on my bike to be ready for the big rides this summer.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/GoMaggieGo

Quality versus quantity

Don't get me wrong, I got some decent miles in on my bike this weekend, but these were particularly good rides.

First, I organized a team training ride for Saturday. As it turned out, only my friend Deb could join me on the Cannon Valley Trail, which is a lovely, scenic bike ride along the Cannon River. The trees were budding, the frogs were making their peeper noises, and we saw a lot of wildflowers. I failed to take photos during the pretty parts of the route, but Deb did take this photo of me, sporting our new jersey and arm warmers.

Ugly trailhead area in Red Wing
Pretty jersey and arm warmers

Exciting Friday night "collating"
the team gear that got delivered

Matt and I had a great ride to the north side of Stillwater today. It started a little bumpy - literally, due to Marshall and Jackson Streets being very potholed. Then we had to walk through some random gravel. We saw several goslings. None of them were Ryan. But I had no photos of the ride today, so here you go, engaged reader!

Am I amused?

We also saw a cute woodchuck, a ton of turtles, a huge catfish head with the skeleton attached (Matt), and a turkey (Maggie), and could hear the frogs again. We had to do some walking by the Lilydale yacht club due to a ton of sand on the road from the recent flooding. We rode through water without even getting our feet wet. We stayed on task, so we were able to take the longer route home so that I could be on time for an afternoon walk with my friend Alison.

So, I've ridden a decent amount the past few weekends, with not much happening during the weekdays. I've had good excuses. This past week, I was in Florida for two nights for a work-like thing that I think I will just characterize as a meeting I attended in my free time for professional development purposes.

About half of the meetings' attendees
were lawyers, so it is fitting that
the hotel was a former fed courthouse 

I got little exercise in Florida, but did manage
to get out for a nice post-dinner walk

I'm thinking I'll be able to get out on my bike during the week, and am looking forward to whatever adventures await.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/GoMaggieGo

It was fantastic, and the weather was great. And I am happy.

Given my lack of riding this far in 2019 (less than 350 miles), I suggested to Matt that we ride only about 80 of the nearly 100-mile route of the Fulton brewery ride. At the end of the ride, we were tired (and I'm looking forward to sleeping tonight, before tomorrow's team training ride), but agreed that we could have done 100. I didn't wear padded shorts, so my butt bones will grumble for the first few miles tomorrow.

Pre-ride snack at Fireroast.
This leftover cookie bit was a welcome
find in my bike bag during the ride.

I took off my shoes at a break roughly
halfway in. I learned that the socks
I got at the St. Bernardus
brewery in Watou Belgium last
year have very nice webbed
ventilation strips!

Due to construction in the west Metro, the Fulton route changed this year. I was really excited to ride (even with a notable headwind) on roads I've never been on, either on a bike or in a car. I never even heard of many of these places before. It was fantastic, and the weather was great. And I am happy.

Not counting the ride to/
from the coffee shop,
we did 80 miles. I
Can't exactly explain
where we were, though.

Between riding last night, today, and tomorrow, I should be fine for the first two MS rides I'm doing in May and June. I'm looking forward to the training I'll do to be ready for the weeklong MS ride in July and the Bay Area MS ride in September.

Speaking of the Bay Area, a text from Anne tells me that apparently my pilgrim-hat-wearing-bitmoji cycling tee is quite a hit on the high school baseball parent circuit! That makes me laugh.
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/GoMaggieGo