Tuesday, July 08, 2008

I got Tagged

Rachael tagged me a while ago, sorry I put this off so long.


1. My friend Tina talked me into buying my first mountain bike in 1996. Tina told me it had to be a "quality" bike and not some K-mart blue light special. So I headed off to Wheel & Sprocket and bought myself a TREK 7000 purple machine with a real Rock Shock for about $800.00. Tina and I rode the Oak Leaf Trails non-stop, every chance we got, until we were blue in the face. Then she talked me into the Fall Color Festival Race at Kettle Moraine in September of 1997. Needless to say, she never told me the bad stories of her good friend who ripped open his knee cap on the blue loop before I signed up for the race. Top that off with the fact that I never road a mountain bike trail before in my life and now I was going to race twenty miles?! Boy was I in for a surprise. I think we both screwed up the start and headed out with a huge group of men, at least a few hundred and it was scary. This was my very first experience riding in the pack, what a way to learn cold turkey. The race was grueling and I felt short of breath the entire race. We stopped for every hand up and feed zone that was offered and gobbled it down frantically. We left right after the race, exhausted and exhilarated. Driving home we chuckled about the race events, how many times I told Tina I felt like I was having an asthma attack and how many times she agreed and said, "oh I know!" but we both could not get over how painfully fun it was. We get home and Tina gets a call from the race directors about the (skewed) results that Tina placed first and I placed second and we missed the awards ceremony. Of course Tina questioned them and told them we were in-experienced racers, but they persisted that those were are times. Now we were both hysterically laughing and perplexed with this news. They sent us all this swag and poor Tina got this huge ass trophy, a great Trek Racing Jersey and a huge Trek duffel bag. I got a TREK tee shirt ( which is my favorite T) and some other stuff. We still are baffled by these results to this day. Back then winning was the furthest thought from my mind and we did not care about anything other then having fun! I thank her to this day for introducing me to mountain biking and I have been having fun ever since.



2. When I was in grade school I dreamed of being a photographer for National Geographic. The photos in that magazine always captured the beautiful essence of the story. Taking pictures has always been a passion of mine just for fun and I often pretend I am famous by posting my pictures on my blog to share with everyone.



3. I was the biggest baby born on July 10th 1964 at St Lukes Hospital in Milwaukee. Weighing in at 10 lbs 2 oz and I even made the local news paper.



4. my favorite phrase, (according to my husband) "it will only take two seconds"



5. I am very good at delegating




6. I took a job out of college, with a travel company as a nurse before I went to grad school and it was the best experience of my life at that time. Places I lived, Baltimore Maryland, Boca Raton Florida, Chicago and Rockford Illinois for three to six months at a time. I stashed away some money while working for this company and had a chance travel to Germany, France, England, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and also visit my friends who were working abroad in Prague and the Virgin Islands. If your unattached and commitment free, go and explore the world is my best advise to you.









here are the rules:



link to the person who tagged you.
post the rules on your blog.
write six random things about yourself.
tag six people at the end of your post.
let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog let the tagger know when your entry is up.

The peeps I want to tag, are too busy getting ready for Nationals and think this is monkey business anyway. Mike, Chris, TJ, Jessie, Marko and Bender. I am always a a sucker for this stuff, what can I say:)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I want to be one of the first to wish you a "Happy Birthday" I didn't think it was after midnight, but it is the 10th already. I think you could be a photographer cause you sure take some great pics. I hope you have a very nice birthday! Mine came and went so fast I didn't even notice! Have a great day!

velogrrl said...

what a fun way to start mt bike racing! jumping right into the fire!

I looked at the results page that you linked to and found myself like 4 or 5 times for the 30 mile race! They must have combined the results of several different years on that one page, it looks pretty scrambled, maybe I ended up on the wrong page. I saw some people's names like 5 times!

It was like going down memory lane looking at those years of results - people that I didn't know then but know now, friends that haven't raced in years. my times are drastically slower for the 30 mile in the 2000's than they were in the 1990's....