The Day From Hell

First off, I want to apologize to my teammates. I headed back to Salt Lake without letting you know. I hope I didn't worry you too much.

This morning started out good enough. I taught an interval Spinning class, and several people came up and told me how much fun they'd had. So far, so good. Okay, it was great. I love it when people tell me the love my class.

After class, I hurried and changed into some cold weather riding gear and drove to Salt Lake to ride with my new team, Ski Utah. I found the meeting spot early, but by the time I was done getting ready, I was about late. Which apparently is no big deal with this group. We pulled out almost 25 minutes after the meeting time. That's good news for me since I have to drive for an hour to ride with them and since I seem to always run late.

We left from 9th South and 9th East in downtown Salt Lake and headed out west to Saltair. The pace was great on the way out and the company was good. Everyone on the team is so friendly! I was having a good time. Somewhere in between Salt Lake and Saltair we stopped and broke into groups of 5-6. Each group was going to let everyone have a turn taking five minute pulls. Brandi started out pulling, and pulled a good pace (thanks!). Then someone else took the pull. She cranked up the pace. I couldn't hold on anymore. I dropped to the back and begin falling off. I began to wonder if I shouldn't just go home. But then Brandi came back and rode the rest of the way to Saltair with me. It was good to ride along and chat with her. Her plan was to turn around when the first group was heading back our way. When we saw them, she turned around and I followed. This is when I realized that there was a bit of wind. I kept slowing. I decided that I would just keep riding easy until the second group caught up to me. They never did. Brandi's group got to the TT turn around point, and they turned back around again. How many times were they going to keep going around? Anyway, I didn't turn around. I kept riding figuring that they had to come back this way, and eventually they would catch me. After heading back toward Salt Lake for about 5 miles, I changed my mind again. I started having thoughts of them all gathered around asking where I'd gone. And nobody would know. So I turned around and went back toward Salt Air. I could see a group heading toward me. What? They're turning around AGAIN! I could see a second group in the distance and decided to keep riding toward them. I was hoping that this group would have someone I knew in it. No such luck. They also turned around. All except one person, Brad. I could see he was not turning, so I turned around so I could ride back with him. I didn't know my way, so I needed someone to help me. Brad was such a sweetheart! He not only rode with me the whole way back (even when I told him to just tell me how to get back since I was too tired to keep up), he slowed and waited for me if I dropped off, and gave me something to eat (I think he thought I was heading for a bonk). And he was there to help me when I wreaked.

Yes, I had my first wreak today. As we were coming up to these sharply angled train tracks Brad says to me, "Careful, these are bad tracks." I could see they were, and I thought I knew how to handle them. However, I wasn't figuring the car behind me into the equation. Because the car was there I didn't swing it as wide as I should have. I landed on my right hip, and knee (ripped my tights >:-< ), and right elbow. I must have tried to catch myself because my left hand is bruised and swollen. The good news is that Rio is fine. If she's damaged it's only her junk wheels. Luckily, I chose not to put on my race wheels for today's ride.

To top off today's crappy day, some old man yelled at me in the REI parking lot. I had gone there to pick up my new snowshoes. To get to REI I had to flip a u-turn around a cement barrier in the road. I had signaled my intentions, but Old Man wasn't paying attention and almost hit me. He followed me into the parking lot and proceeded to cuss me out.

I drove home fighting back tears, and still pretty shook up. It took me forever to get home because I felt so brain dead I could hardly function. I couldn't even find I-15. I just kept driving south looking to find 9000 South because that was the only way I could think of to get there.

I'm ready for this day to be over. I'm going to bed.