Biking and Soccer

The weather continues to be sweltering and pretty miserable overall. It should be an interesting practice this evening in the heat and humidity.

In order to get in a bike ride and to beat the heat, on Sunday I got up at 6:00AM, got the laundry started and loaded up my bike in the minivan. Our powerpack/air compressor has given up the ghost, apparently and I haven't been able to put any air into my tires for the past few rides. They still feel good and firm, but I know they could use some air. I ordered a new compressor that hopefully will be here by this coming weekend. Anyway, I drove out to the W&OD Trail for my ride minus Ann again. She claimed it was going to be too hot, but at 7:00 in the morning it wasn't really - at least not yet. Since Ann wasn't with me I decided to head east toward Vienna rather than west toward Leesburg. It's a bit more challenging and a little more crowded. I also decided since I started so early, that i would shoot for 30 miles rather than our usual 20 mile ride. As I headed off, the weather was really quite comfortable and not bad at all. After riding about 4 miles, I saw all these riders headed west. There were a lot more than the usual weekend riding crowd. I also noted that they were wearing numbers on their backs. I also started seeing direction signs for the Tour de Cure. It was a ride/fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association. It was nice that they were headed in the direction opposite than me although there were several riders who decided that it was a lot less crowded if they rode on my side of the trail. No collisions occurred, but I did have to slow down several times to give them time to pull back over to their side of the trail. It took me an hour to ride the 12.5 miles into Vienna. It took me the same time for the ride back, which indicates that the ups and downs of the trail even out over that stretch. Once back at Rt 28, I rode past the parking lot up to Ashburn Road and back making a total of 32 miles for the day. On the way back, I stopped at Smith Switch Station to refill my water bottle. There were a number of riders resting and chatting. One of the riders was discussing a collision between riders. I didn't catch exactly where it happened, but apparently a rider coming off a side trail didn't look for traffic and collided (t-boned) with a female rider causing her to take a nasty fall. She must have been pretty shaken up as it sounded like she went into shock (was feeling cold) and an ambulance had to be called to taker to the hospital. She was wearing a helmet, which apparently saved her from a much more serious injury.

After my ride, I just hung out the rest of the day. Given that I was tired from the ride and the temperature was headed up to 96, it was the sensible thing to do. To amuse myself, I've been watching the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. Think World Cup, but with European teams only. I love watching the World Cup so this is a treat. The level of competition is pretty amazing. My only complaint is none of the Great Britain teams made the tournament. England finished in third in their qualifying group by one point. Scotland also finished third in their group, 2 points behind the second place finisher. Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland also failed to qualify. So I think I'm routing for the Netherlands. They're off to a great start thumping Italy 3-0. Think orange. Spain plays Russia and Greece plays Sweden today. ESPN2 replays the best match of the day at 8:00. That's right about the time I'm getting home from soccer practice. It's a nice break from watching the Nationals who are just going down the tubes this season.