Tortour
- ultrashanna
- Sep 15, 2024
- 11 min read
August 9th, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 7 Comments »
Germany
The flight- the flight was horrible and Delta airlines are officially on my “doodoo” list after this trip. Anthony and I boarded the plane on Friday morning for our first attempt to get to Germany. Our flight never left DFW . Delta would never change our intermarry until late that evening. We did not get back to our houses until 8pm Friday night and needed to leave by 430 the next morning to catch our new flights.
On Saturday I woke up to no water. I planned to take a quick shower but the city turned the water off for maintenance. No shower? Yuck…what a way to start the day off. So off we went again to the airport. Anthony’s poor girlfriend had to ruin her weekend sleep for us. WE checked and the first flight went ok. I knew I was not going to have a window seat. I let Anthony have it knowing I was going to get my window on the next flight. Let me tell you…….i love window seats. I can sleep with no problem with a down pillow and a wall. I was looking forward to the 8 hour flight from Atlanta to Germany. We had a 6 hour layover in Atlanta. Anthony snuck out of the airport to eat lunch with his granddad and I sat in a massage chair…dreaming of my window seat. When we boarded the plane we discovered that E was not a window seat. I was instantly pissed at the delta guy that assured me it was when I questioned him about it. BS….this was when I got pissed off. Just before takeoff some people asked the flight attendant something and she led them to some seats in the back. I did not take one minute and I jumped into the seat…just in case it was going to be empty. What was Delta going to do…kick me out of the seat? It was worth a try. It worked…I got my window seat and I could see the jealousy in Anthony’s eyes. He also envied my down pillow. I got some sleep….thank goodness. I had a busy week with massages and had not had a goodnights sleep in a while. I was feeling like I was getting sick. I slept the entire flight and it was great!
Germany- Markus (the fiancé) greeted us at the airport. He was a sight for sore eyes. We dropped Anthony off at Nora’s (my crew member) apartment in Dusseldorf. Nora was going to take Anthony to his road race. Markus and I headed to his house for a family party. I got 30 minutes to get ready and was then greeted with 30 family members all anxious to meet who Markus was marrying. Sure wish I knew German but I will in time. The party started at 10:30am and the last of the family left at 9:30. I had to sneak a nap in while the party was going on. It was lots of fun.
Markus and I were planning to go to bed and Anthony came crashing through the door. We were up late talking about his pro race. He had fun and was all smiles. We all went to bed around 11.
August 6th, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 1 Comment »
Tortour- the race is still on…..i think. I have been in heavy training and feel ready. Yesterday i was supposed to fly out but spent all day at the Dallas airport. the plane had a mechanical and never got fixed. I got to come home and sleep with my puppies again and will try teh same schedule today. Today already started off great. The city has turned the water off…..yuck. it will be 3 days with no shower by the time i get to Europe. I did use some bottled water but i could only take so much of the cold. Talk about waking up. What is funny is that i usually just keep the botttled water at room temp but for some reason i decided to put all of it in the frig……..BRRRRR!
I am ok with the new change in flights but Anthoney, my crew, is the one who really got screwed. He was going to do his first European pro race on Sunday. We now arrive at 7am sunday morning and his race is at 430……i think he should do it anyway. i know i would. i am hoping he changes his mind. The anxiety at the airport after 8 hours yesterday was up….
More updates on Tortour.
June 9th, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 308 Comments »
So this was off the list last week. i was not sure if i had a full crew and did not really want to do the training. I was sort of training without a real goal so some of the spark was gone from the workouts. My coach told me to think about a goal last weekend. I was starting a plan b of sprint races and getting married……wait a minute. Marriage was the main goal above all the races.
I was telling one of my cleints/friends…Anothony White a Cat 1-2 road racer that i was leaning towards not doing the race and before i got my sentence out of my mouth….he was volunteering crewing and getting his flight. all i could think was ….oh gosh…is he for real. i figured that maybe he was bluffing and while on my short touring like ride on Saturday he called and asked me the dates. i led him to the website. Sunday night he was texting questions and I let him know the flights were at 12k. i got no reply. i figured things had changed. i woke up monday morning with a text saying “you better get your butt training.” i had mixed emotions but got sort of excited so now i have a flight to Tortour and it is on the list. The miles will start now and from now until August the training will be hell. The training is not really hell but all the time it takes is…..Tortour here we come. i am still waiting for Anthony to get his flight……in the meantime i check flights 2x a day hoping for a cheaper ticket.
This weekend- so i have a good friend with a plane that will be here tomorrow and the plan was to fly into Mena, arkansas and do one really hard route….that is until i spoke with the coach. I have 140 miles and my friend has 120 miles and a run afterwards. it would not be fair to do this route that is 15000 ft of climbing each way….that is in about 50 miles. tortour is 50000 in 620 miles just to give you an idea of hwo hard Arkansas would be. I tried to get my coach to get off the idea of miles and convert to time but he was reluctant. So Tim and I will be going to a mountain called Mount Scott and try to find a route. i hate riding in an unknown area but looks like it would be better to do this route for Tims sake……he is doing Ironman Lake Placid that only had 6000 ft of climbing. Maybe my fiance and I can go do Arkansas in a couple of weeks…we will see. I will do lots of hill repeats on mount scott to try to get some mountain climbing in. i have to get some mountains in if i think i am going to do Switzerland.
cycling- so it is time to try to get fast but training for Tortour might get in the way for a while. i am finally working with a coach. his name is rich and he has trainers at his house. i did my first power test this week. i was so excited and my outlook on training changed. I hate to go hard but i need to get some speed in my legs….what for…..well ultraman …what else? After tortour the junk long miles will be no more. i am so looking forward to my workouts with Rich. Will keep ya posted.
June 2nd, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 414 Comments »
Fort Worth- I have not even been in Fort Worth 2 years but i know i love this place. I am building a great business and really loving it here. My clients are not really just clients….they are more like friends and i am really getting to know a great bunch of people through my training and work. I have some new cleints coming in that are really cool. i also have a great house that I love. Not so sure if the puppies are liking the heat but as far as i can tell they love me working at home. It took me a long time to move from Lubbock and i think it is one of the best things i ever did. i am just hoping Markus (the fiance) feels the same way.
Tortour- gosh this race is up in the air for me. i know i can do it but not sure if i have a crew put together and not so sure if i want to force teh issue. Markus has been searching for crew and has some that will be getting back to him. If i dont do Tortour i wont have my feelings hurt. So strange…usually i am so stuck on doing races no matter what but right now i am really ok going with the flow. Doing some shorter races locally wont hurt my feelings a bit. This weekend is not going to be long training for me. i have a wedding to go to.If i dont have a crew by next weekend then i will have to make a decision for or against tortour. Markus is going to do the race and will be over here in a couple of weeks. i will most likely train with him to be supportive but i might not do the same milage. Some nice sprint tris and olympic distance races will be nice to do for a change. Will keep ya posted.
May 31st, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 47 Comments »
600k- wow what a ride! It was hot and windy and a very long day. I felt good most of the day and in the beginning i was riding with some of the people doing the 200k. I sort of figured it was stupid that i was riding ahead of them so i would stop and wait on occasion. It was a good bunch to be riding with and Gary Goliff..gotlive…or however you spell it was the machine again. He was the one organizing the ride and was like a little daddy making sure everyone was ok. he was riding a tandom with his pretty wife so he is usually a bit slower. when gary is on his single bike i am usualy in for too hard of a ride.
I think i might need to have markus (the fiance) do some rides with Gary while he is on the tandom. Gary can show him how to take care of me like he does Dana (th wife). Gary had a tandom made so that each pedal system is separate….this means dana does not have to pedal all the time. She can rest if she needs to but she really doesn’t. It got really hot and we had a head wind most of the day. Two of us would get into the stores and then wait for the others to come in. Next thing you knew the group was down to 5 riders…two on a tandom. It took us 8 hours to get 100 miles in. I was sort of freaking out about how long the ride was taking us but trying to keep my cool,. I wanted to have two consective hard rides in with a full nights sleep. There was no way that was going to happen. We were way behind schedule. I felt good and was riding good pretty much the entire day. We had enought stops that my nutrition was dead on and i was feeling better then i thought i would. When we got a tail wind it was really nice. the only problem with taking so long for the ride is that i was not sure if i was going to have enough lights to get home on., i did not bring a back up and my light was only good for 4 hours. Thsi guy jeremy rode with me in the end and we got ahead of the others. i was on a mission to get back to the hotel. the other tw0 bikes rolled in right not long after. We did 225 miles and it was a tough day. tough enough that i decided not to ride the next day. I actually made the decision not to ride the next day at about 9pm when we still had another 4 hours to finish the first day. I looked at the wind for sunday and it was worse. Jeremy got a text from his dad informing him that Dallas/fort worth had 6500 power outages. I decided that my ride was getting drug out longer then planned. i never rode into the night when i trained for RAAM either. The idea of two quality rides with longer sleep was gone. I did get my training in and rode better then i expected. I expected to feel worse after 200 miles but felt ok…ok enough to give massages on Sunday after little sleep.
As for the the randonnuers. i admire all of them. i am not sure how many stuck it out fo the second day but i did talk to Gary Sunday night and he sounded like a spring chicken. He was planning to ride anotehr 200k on Monday…not sure who joined him but i think his wife was with him the entire time. these guys are junkies that i really admire and they are all so tough. i have done this particular 600k before….it was my first one if i remember right. i dont think i ever was out so long but we did not always have such bad weather conditions. I moved away from Lubbock to get away from the wind and it followed me.
just to give you an idea. two of my buddies that were doing the 200k said they saw 114 or 116 on their bike computers….i know it did not get that hot but who knows next to the pavement. I think i was doing ok with the heat. Overall it was a good day even if i did not do the second day. i am on a mission to make as much money as possible these days.
RATS!!- not sure what is in my attick but i have another cittter back playing. I will admit that i am too chicken to go into the attick. I dont have a ladder tall enough but will most likely have to tend to this tomorrow. i like to think i am tough but not that tough. i had this problem last year and ended up just putting out some rat stuff and it took care of the problem. This problem sounds like a squirrel…..or worse…a possem.
May 27th, 2011 Posted in Shanna's Blog Entries | 157 Comments »
600k.- so this weekend is going to be super hot. i usually like the heat but after all the rain and stuff the humidity is going to be crazy! i am ready to ride and the van is loaded up. the four doggies are all going to Authors for the weekend. it took more time packing all their stuff up then my stuff. I love my little doggies and hate to see them go. i will miss sleeping with them. This afternoon i had a break and just layed around with them for a bit. It was sooo nice!
wedding plans- so my life and Marcus’s life is like a roller coaster. Looks like his job is ending sooner then we thought. the origianl plan was for him to come over next year but looks like it will be in August. no sense in him sitting over in Germany. Just when you think you have things planned out things change. I am excited about it. The puppies will not be so crazy about it but they will adjust.
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