So, in looking for new and "fun" ways to challenge myself, I decided
(along with my friend Allison) that we would do an organized bike ride.
It's not a race, just an organized course that you do with like 600 of
your closest friends. This was women's only (there are a few out there,
Little Red, Goldilocks and Wildflower Pedalfest are the ones I know of),
which was great. Also organized by women-which was evident in the fact
that there were (very cute!) decorations on the food tables-seriously, I
have never seen that before. (It was like a RS activity-in that respect
anyway). The one we chose was Goldilocks-the timing was right for us.
How it works was that you choose your distance: 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100
miles. We chose the 60. I'm not a cyclist-I just do it as the middle
event in my tri's. I did train for this event, but it's hard when the
weather doesn't cooperate and the sun doesn't come up until after 6:30
(and you have to be home by 6:45 or 7). No excuses, but my longest
training ride was 32 miles and it was difficult. For me. And I was alone
out there. The nerves kicked in and I started to panic a little,
thinking we should drop our distance to 40. But then I mentally kicked
myself and said, just do it! So on the beautiful Saturday before Mother's Day, I
sent the family out the door to Rachel's softball game, loaded my bike
onto Allison's car rack, and headed to Butterfield park in Herriman.
This is us before the ride-all fresh and whatnot. The ride took us a little bit around Herriman and then Bluffdale to Redwood Road-then out to Saratoga Springs area-where we turned west and went to Cedar Fort. If you know the road-it takes you by Camp Williams, and yes, that is a HUGE hill, thank you very much. (Thus the nerves on my part).
This is us at lunch-the 30 mile/halfway point. How it works is there are a few aid stations that you can get off the bike, have a snack, stretch, whatever. We got a quick stop at 19 miles, then we stopped here at 30, where we ate, stretched and then did it all again (I mean, you know, since we were only at the halfway point and still have 30 more miles to go)
After lunch, we stopped at the 40 mile point at which I could not get my left foot unclipped from my pedal. The nice man took my shoe off so I could grab a snack, at which point we discovered that it wasn't just that my screw was loose (on my shoe clip, haha, I saw the joke as soon as I wrote it), but one was actually missing, thus I couldn't get the pressure to unattach my shoe from the pedal. No worries, I thought....until about 4 miles later when I apparently lost the other screw and was no longer attached at all on the left side. If you are familiar with road bike pedals, they aren't really pedals, but more a place to attach your shoe. What do you want to do? Finish it, of course! These are my shoes, post race.
We passed up the final aid station at like mile 54, opting to just "get 'er dun." Then about 2 miles later, Allison heard a pop/hiss come from her back tire and within a mile or so had lost complete pressure. We stopped by a nice police officer, who knew how to change a flat. As did we, in theory, and she had the stuff, but we "let" him do it. There was an aid # to call for support and they would change the flat, but they were slower than the police officer. Really we were only stopped for like 10 minutes. Then it was off to the finish! Total ride time was about 4 hours.
Glad I did it. And I would do it again. I wasn't even as sore as I thought I would be!
My post race picture looks almost exactly like the other two, but it's more to prove to myself that those legs are still holding the rest of me up after 60 miles in the saddle.
