May 1 We did 25 miles today. We had planned to do more but since I’m still recovering from a cold, we decided it best to cut it short.

May 2 The weather didn’t cooperate with us today. We set out to ride this morning but alas, it started to rain. We’re hoping the weather improves and we can try again this afternoon.

May 6 The Trenton Film Festival is this weekend. Dan and I are both members of the Trenton Film Society board and committee chairs for the festival. We haven't been able to ride this week because Dan's evenings have been taken up with festival business. The festival is over on Sunday and it's back to training.

May 10 Dan works in Philly so it's hard to get rides in during the week. Now, that we have new car, I can load the bike and drive down to Philly to meet him. I drove down to Philly today to meet him for a ride. We were planning to ride 1 1/2 hours but got turned around on the bike path and only rode for about an hour.

May 11 I found the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia on the internet today. There were several ride cue sheets posted starting at various locations in Philly. I think we'll use one of these for our next Philly bike tour.

May 12 After I picked Dan up from the train station, we went for a short ride (~ 12 miles). We need to get in two 15-20 miles during the week in addition to our long weekend rides. If I met Dan in Philly after work, we could definitely get in a 20 mile ride. What we'll probably do is have me meet him once a week in Philly and then ride around here once a week. We have the 60 mile mandatory hilly ride with Anchor House on Sunday. That's going to be tough. However, we are going to practice going up the hardest part of the route tomorrow morning.

May 16 Today was a killer training ride. It was the second of the mandatory "hilly" training ride for rookie Ride for Runaways participants. It was 62 long miles. It was made even longer for us because our chain kept falling off. I'm going to take the bike into the shop this weekend to see if they can fix the problem. This is not something we want to deal with during the 500 mile week. It's not only stopping to put the chain back on but the frustration saps some of the enthusiasm of the ride.

Dan preparing the bike before our training ride.	All smiles before we head out for today's training ride.

Good news! We were able to conquer all the hills on the ride without having to walk them or take rest stops. The first time we did Federal Twist Road on the tandem. We had to stop twice before we made it to the top of the hill. That was not the case today. I was really proud of us. This doesn't mean we should get cocky and cut back on our training. I do think it means we're getting stronger and better.

May 18 The chain finally bit the ghost. We set out on a ride this evening and got about a 1 mile before the chain got completely jammed out. We took one look at it and decided it was time to take it to the shop. Dan wanted to coast the bike back to the car, but I preferred to walk. We compromised and did a little of both. I'm just glad we weren't on a steep uphill when this happened.

As you can see from the photo, this bike isn't going anywhere.

May 19 We took the bike to Bernie's bike shop yesterday.