Awesome ride!

Ok, first of all... I saw Lance Armstrong training! I was driving to the ride, and I looked over and saw a cyclist wearing a Livestrong kit (it looked something like that, but I thought I saw a yellow star on the sleeve...). I kind of wondered who it was... and I looked in my rearview mirror, and saw a black SUV following behind with flashing lights (you'll see this a lot with pro cyclists when they're training). When I got to the ride, Chuck told me that it was indeed Lance Armstrong--another guy actually got a close look at him, and recognized him.

I did a group ride this afternoon. We started out at a pretty aggressive pace for about five-eight miles or so, and then Chuck got a flat. It ripped a pretty big hole through his tire, so he and another guy, Scott, went back to replace it. After that the pace became somewhat reasonable, haha. For the most part, I was able to stick with the group. I got dropped on some hills, but they slowed down to let me catch up, heh. After 15 miles or so, we turned down some county road, and did a bunch of hills. At the end of that road, we all stopped to turn around, and the other girl on our ride rode back a ways for a "natural break". I stayed with the guys, and after a minute, one of them goes, "April, we need a piss break, so you gotta go that way." LOL.

At one point after we turned around, we were all together, and I got dropped on a hill. The guys kept going, and the other girl in the group was a ways ahead of me. After the hill, I got into the drops and actually started closing the gap. I eventually caught up at a light. We went down a longish hill, and I dropped the other girl on the ride. She teaches spin classes, and she's relatively strong, so I figured she'd catch up with me and drop me after we began a long climb. But she didn't catch up. I looked back at the top of the hill, and she was still only halfway or so. She never did catch back up, which was weird. I don't know, maybe she had a long ride yesterday and was tired or something. ;) Either way, I was really proud of how strong I rode. At one point, I passed Chuck, who was putting a jacket on. He caught back up a couple minutes later and goes, "Man, you're riding really strong!" :D We ended up with around 35 miles, and I had an average speed of 16, which is pretty damn awesome considering I rode alone for a good 10-12 miles into a headwind after we turned around.

I went out for lunch with Amber... maybe that had something to with it, lol.

Seriously, what is it with me and my fingers this month?! I was taking Jaiden on a walk, and he spotted a little dog coming our way. No big deal, I just gathered his leash in tighter (he's obsessed with the little guys). Out of nowhere, he gives a hard TUG on the leash just as the dog is passing, and it rips right over my thumbnail, bending it backwards 1/4 inch. Good lord it hurt. It started bleeding right away, and I couldn't do anything about it. Jaiden was a good boy on the way back, lol. My right index finger is still swollen/painful/numb (how it can be numb and painful at the same time is a neat trick) from my tree adventure. My left thumb finally healed up from the dog fight, but it's now angry again from the dog walk. Argh.