congratulations! you should indeed feel proud, that's a great acheivement.

sounds like the heat was a factor, that takes a lot out of ya, and it takes a while to find out all the things that keep us comfy on a bike (oh heck, just go out and buy a Riv). The fact you recovered quickly bodes well, think you're doing great.

One thing I learned on the ride from Bike Goddess is she said something like this to me "I treat every ride as a training ride".

In other words each ride, longest or shortest you're asking yourself "how'd that diet work? is there anything that hurts and what can i do to fix that? How's the bike performing? What's that squeek? Oh, that's my knee." and you're always tweaking all these things so that bike, body, it all works...hopefully.

If you had a pledge goal please post it to

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=2831

just as a fun thing to do i thought we'd track just how much TE riders raise towards great causes this year.