Women on the Move!

First of all, I'm 57 this year and have lost over 107 lbs over the past year thanks to my involvement in bicycling. I took a hard look at myself in a picture taken with my friend in Las Vegas a year ago and couldn't believe my eyes. I was really fat! Couple that with passing the speed limit in my age and I figured if I wanted to be around a few more years it was time for me to listen to my doctor!

I started riding an exercise bicycle at home but soon became bored with this and jumped on an old Trek 850 mountain bike I had purchased many years ago with good intentions of loosing weight.

I started riding on my days off averaging about 30 - 40 minutes twice a week. As I started getting stronger I decided I would start commuting to work on my bike. This was about 6 miles one way and was a good way of not missing a daily workout.

Over the course of this past year I have gone from over 345 lbs and a size 30 to 32 to my present 240 lbs size 16-18. I still have about 70 lbs to to to reach my goal weight of 165 but I will get there!

I recently put the Trek to pasture and purchased a new Specialized Tarmac Expert road bike (you might be able to guess the size of the bike, smile). I'm now hooked for good on bicycling. I rode the Long Beach Marathon bike tour in October and have competed locally in the December Tom's Farm Time trial and most recently in the January Piru 20k time trial. I attended the January women's clinic at the ADT center and plan on buying one of the Pro Lite track bikes with my income tax refund this year.

I will be competing in the Dominguez Hills Criterium on 1/28 and then rushing over to the ADT center to compete in the women's challenge there. In fact I've pretty much scheduled all of my vacation time this year so that I can compete in as many local races as possible. Costa Mesa Criterium in Feb, and WCC as much as possible.

So if you happen to run into me at a local race, or at the ADT center please feel free to say hello to the tall old lady, smile ( I'm 5'12" tall, yes I know but it sounds better than 6').

Hope I haven/t rambled on too much! Thanks to everyone involved in the WCC including yourself, Julia and Roger at the ADT center.

BTW included a copy of my pict at the Jan adt event, still don't like my picture yet, but its getting better.

Caitlin Martin