Coni Ellis and Janet Davis represented the South Central Region, and gave me a big send-off this morning with a poster and maracas. They added great enthusiasm to our departure!
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| Coni Ellis and Janet Davis shaking maracas at the send off! |
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| Janet Davis and Coni Ellis got up before dawn to drive from the Houston area to celebrate Cycling for Scholarships with Katherine. |
But before that, Janet put the perfect dressing on Marge's toe. The toenail had come off, and she needed to protect it from further damage. The timing of our WOC nursing expertise couldn't have been more perfect!
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| Janet has the perfect dressing to cover and protect Marge's toe where she has just lost a toenail. She brought other helpful products we can share among the group. |
It was 65 degrees and cloudy when we left at 7:45 a.m. Breakfast had been a sparse bowl of raisin bran. Marge stuffed a PB&J in my back pack and I was off. I loved shifting gears on my bike! The left shifter had been replaced by Jeremiah at Aggieland Cycles on our rest day. The road was fairly flat, but sometimes I would just shift for the joy of working the gears that were performing the way they should! I am so appreciative of Dennis at Great Escape in Spartanburg for helping get this sorted out.
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| It was January 1969 when I flew to Cleveland for the naming and official chartering of what we know today as the WOCN. And here I am, 42 years later, on my way to Cleveland to promote WOC nursing and to raise $200,000 for the WOCN Society Foundation. I am amazed by the synchronicity of this. Cleveland, TX you understand. |
By 10:00 a.m., I was digging for the PB& J sandwich. By noon, I was looking for energy bars. I ran out of steam about 2:00 p.m., and still had at least an hour to go. I was able to get more Gatorade, cold water and another energy bar from the SAG. I drank and ate as much as I could and finished the 75 miles at 3:30 p.m. with the temperature in the high 80s. This is the first day I had dealt with real perspiration.
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| The imposing Grimes County Courthouse. |
I dashed across the street from our motel, and had a shrimp cocktail and some of the salad the others had left on their plate. After a good shower and a little emailing it was time to eat again! We had pasta salad made with sun dried tomatoes, Caesar salad and the meat eaters had chicken piccata. Dessert was strawberries, whipped cream, angel food cake and a little chocolate sauce. I ate it all. I even had three small Dove chocolates with our after-dinner coffee! I was ravenous.
It was a great day from beginning to end. In the future, I'll be much more careful about keeping the calories up on long rides.
Sounds like a tough day, but ultimately rewarding. How nice to have your colleagues see you off - enthusiasm in the morning is a wonderful thing.
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