My Dragon

It's been a trying couple of weeks and I've been missing from the blogging world.  Many understand and know why... and many have already eloquently written about last week... so I will try to move forward... how?  Well... I'm not sure you knew... but I've got this dragon...

In the fall of 2008 the hubby and I bought road bikes and started down this path that has drastically changed our lives... we became cyclists... about 6 months into this new adventure... we heard of a ride coming up... lots of people were doing it... so why not us?  The ride: Marque de Sade

Now... Marquis de Sade... was an interesting French fella...  He was a bit crazy... literally spent much of his life in insane asylums... and the term "sadism" is derived from his name...

This should have at least given me pause... right?  Maybe caused me to step back and ask why this ride was called the Marque de Sade??  Hmm... Sadism, pleasure through pain... hmm...

However I was a bright eyed bushy tailed new cyclist... ready to take on anything... or so I thought. I mean... look at this smile beforehand!

I had delusions of grandeur for a nice long ride in the upstate... got some new gear for the hubby & I, some great nutrition prepared... Then something happened... 5 miles in we hit the first short climb... and I didn't see the hubby again for the rest of the ride... and I realized I may not make it through the day.  After 16,000 feet of elevation gain... sore feet from walking the bike up a couple of mtns... & 6 hours later... I rolled back into the North Greenville Campus a defeated cyclist.

And this ride became my dragon...

Scroll forward 12 months to present day... This weekend is the Marque de Sade ride presented by the Freewheelers of Spartanburg as a training ride for Assault on Mt. Mitchell... (btw - I didn't know last year that this was a trng ride for AOMM)...

I've 12 additional months of experience on the bike... thousands of miles in the saddle... races completed... mountains conquered... but I haven't done another ride like the Marque de Sade.

You see that dragon up at the top of this blog... sitting there taunting me? That's my dragon... he's sitting on top of White Oak... I'll chase him off to Green River... and then I'll go after him like a spider monkey all hopped up on Mountain Dew!  The ride... the mountains will not defeat me... I will slay this dragon!