New Bike!

Wow. I just typed out a big long post and it got deleted. ugh!

Anyway, the title does not lie, I have a new bike to train on! Well, new to me anyway. The wonderful Jamie McDonald, of Sunrise Cyclery in Minneapolis, has loaned me a bike to use to train and for the ride. I am so pumped! Thanks very much to Jamie, and to Paul for helping me sort all this out!
I got the bike on Saturday... but first i'll recap since my last post...

Thursday my plan was to do a relatively brief ride, but when i got out there i felt so good (despite the crappy bike and the wind) that I did 20 miles! Woo!

Friday I kept it short because the wind was terrible again and I had to drive down to the cities, so I just did 5 miles.

Saturday was the day of the training ride in Minneapolis. So I headed over to Sunrise Cyclery and Jamie set me up with a bike to use, I thought he might have intended for me to just use it that day, but he said i could keep it through the end of the ride. SWEET! I was super nervous because this bike felt totally different from what I was used to and I was worried I was totally going to bite it, but it went totally fine! Thanks to Morgan, Mary and Megan for making the ride so great! I feel like I learned a lot and I feel much more confident and excited about the ride. woo! We did about 30 miles, which is the longest ride I've ever done! I felt great afterwards! My back was a little sore, but nothing compared to how it felt with my old bike.

Sunday i hopped on the Gateway trail and did 15 miles. I did the same route i did when I was home a couple weeks ago, but this time it was much easier and faster! It was great.

Monday I squeezed in a quick 10 mile ride after work and a meeting w/my landlord and before grocery shopping and laundry. fun times. It was lovely.

Today, Sarah and I are going to do our first ride together! We'll head out after work and probably do about 10-15 miles. You can expect some pictures of us soon!

In fundraising news... My dear Uncle Larry sent a check for $75, Thanks Uncle Larry! And my buddies Tess and TJ each made a donation Friday. Thank you Tess and TJ, you guys rock! This brings me to a total of $340 so far. Slowly but surely!
ALSO Sarah and I scored a sponsorship from Fitzharris Bike and Sport here in St. Cloud. They agreed to donated a pair of bike shorts and a jersey for each of us. Woo hoo! I can't wait to try out my bike shorts!

Lots of exciting stuff happening! This weekend I will be heading to Germany (assuming this cloud of volcanic ash allows me to). I'm super pumped, but also a bit nervous that I'm going to lose some ground on my training. I'm going to try to keep things up by running/walking/possibly swimming. If I really want to humiliate myself I could post a picture of myself after a run. haha we'll see...

Anyway, that's all for now!

~Andrea