A BIT OF A CHANGE IN ANGELA's PLANS

It was a quiet month. No word from Angela. I guess that's good.

Then, finally, an update: Angela's live liver transplant donor wasn't going to be able to donate after all. But the reason was that her doctors said it would be better for her to have a donation from a cadaver. I'm not a doctor so I have no idea why this change, but as long as she gets her liver, I'm OK with whatever decision her medical team makes. Anyway, life goes on for Angela -- two girls, busy with school, and one helping her parents out with the remodeling of one of the rooms in their house. And Angela shared some photos of some of the wonderful comfort food they cooked up in upstate New York. Some type of yummy cassoulet with fresh herbs.

In the meantime, I'm still working hard to achieve my original goal of 7,500 miles this year -- without the incentive of raising funds for Angela. But THAT's OK! I'd rather have this situation than the previous one!

March has been an interesting month, weatherwise. Some rain we desperately needed, followed by many, many days of glorious spring weather. So, that helped produce some miles! My first cycle event for spring is scheduled for April 4 -- the Cinderella Challenge -- slightly less than a full century, but still challenging. It's a local event organized by my local bike club, the Valley Spokesmen. I helped form a team of Luna Chix ride leaders to assist in the training of many area women who are participating in this ride; some are veteran riders, but many are novices, planning to complete their first major event. We had several weeks of increasingly longer rides to help prepare them.

This, plus I committed to ride a week-long endurance ride in the mountains of Colorado in June with some good friends from Team in Training -- Amy, Nancy, Grace, Janet, and Janet's husband, Mark. About 38,000 feet of elevation gain, about 500 miles, in high altitude -- for seven days! So, that means getting my body and mind prepared quickly! March brought several difficult rides of increasing length. The hardest one was a local ride with the Grizzly Peak Cyclists club out of Berkeley, with 87 miles and 6,000' of climbing, on a really cold breezy day. Good mental preparation, not to mention physical!

My final stats for March: 655 miles! Total mileage for 2009 to date: 2101, averaging 700 miles per month. I've reached 28% of my annual goal. The question now is: Can I maintain? We shall see.