I signed up to do Burly Girl, but it just wasn't meant to be. I over slept by two hours (!!), then my little toy panther got out as I was struggling with the bike in the doorway, and did her kitty hovercraft sprint to the woods behind my house. when I finally found her, she was shivering in the brush and wanted to be carried back to the house. Then it was time to tear the house apart looking for my helmet (which I always keep in the same place), and after that came the obligatory wrong turn in Issaquah. So I started with the girly girl straglers in a pretty intense downpour. I was actually feeling pretty good in spite of the rain, and the giant pretzle and tasty chickpea salad at the "deciding" rest stop was such a great pick-me-up, I decided to tackle the rest of the burly girl ride. 3 miles into the climb on Tiger mountain, my rear wheel started visciously rubbing the brakes for no darned good reason. I fiddled with the brakes until it stopped, but it started up again about a quarter of a mile further on. I got it to stop again but decided to just turn around and head back down toward Issaquah-Hobart road and back to the start. Wasn't long after that that my rear wheel flatted and I discovered that I had everything but the levers and the kitchen sink in my emergency bag. Several wonderful women stopped to help, but then the SAG van showed up. Oddly, they didn't have levers either! But, they showed me a neat trick of using the little handle that flips up to tighten the pump as a lever. pretty slick! I was pretty happy to see the finish, and was happy to call that a middle sister finish. Sorta. I picked up my swag and booked it out of there since there was a really long line for the food. I tried not to be annoyed when the sun came out as I reached my car. It really was a good ride, but I was having an abundance of slightly irritating events going on concurrently. It does my heart good to see all the youngsters being quietly, but powerfully influenced by this event. I'll try to keep it all in perspective for the next year, and sign up again