Cancer Awareness Run & Ride

So the last time I posted I thought my brain was going to explode! Come to find out there was a full moon that night. I'm totally blaming that for feeling like a crazy person.

Saturday morning was the big day I'd been stressing about all week. 20% chance of rain (or 40% depending on what weather app I was looking at)., that had me totally freaked out. Who wants to ride their bike 62 miles in the rain? Not me that's for sure.

Friday night I made us a carbalicious meal and then I went to a birthday party and ate cake and ice cream yum yum. We got up early Saturday morning (apparently I don't really want to sleep in?) and I had my usual pre-activity meal of English muffin, peanut butter and a banana. Slurped down some coffee, filled up my water bottles and we were off!

I had picked up our packets ahead of time so all we had to do was ride up to the start line. Scott found some of his buddies from the train so we lined up with them but right after we got going we had already lost them.  The ride took us around the college a bit and then out towards a road I actually drive on to go to work.

There was a rest stop there but we skipped it. We kept going and I noticed that the vandals did another number on that lovely green park field again. Assholes!! That stretch on that road was the scariest part of the whole ride. The traffic moves really fast through there. I was glad when we finally turned off.

At this point we were riding along where there were harvesting the tomato fields. Our area is a huge tomato producing area (mostly for sauces and such) and the smell of the harvesting tomatoes is just divine for me. The smell of the earth mixed in with the tomatoes. Ahhh  loved it!

We made it to the next rest stop which was the "far" point (about 26 miles in!) of the ride where we would then go back the other direction. We stopped to use the bathroom and I ate half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and half a banana.

We got back on our bikes and I was kind of happy to see that we were passing people still riding the other direction. We weren't last!  Scott was a ways ahead of me and there was a big hot shop group of people that had passed us. Those big groups are really intimidating. They usually all have the same jerseys on, some kind of club or group I guess and they ride all clumped together and just whizz past you. Usually they scare the crap out of me because I don't hear them coming and they would pass so close to me. Scott got in behind this group and was going along behind them for awhile. I was a bit behind and so he decided to pull off and wait for me to catch up. He did and we rode along together for a bit.

Then we were back onto that busy road and we went around a turn and there was that big group of riders all wiped out on the side of the road. I saw a girl sitting up holding her arm and there was bikes everywhere along the side of the road. A car was pulled over so I didn't really know what was going on. There was that rest stop (the one we skipped in the beginning) and we stopped there. Scott said he thought there was at least five people hurt. Scary stuff! Makes me even more timid to ride that close to other people too. One person f's up and you all go down! At this stop I had some trail mix and an orange quarter. I knew that I needed to keep eating so that I wouldn't get too tired. This is something I have learned from doing all our practice rides.

After that we rode back towards the college but instead of taking the road that would take us right back we went out farther and ended up mixing up with people that were doing the shorter distance rides of 12 and 25 miles. I felt like a rock star just whizzing past all those people. It was kind of a surreal moment. We stopped at another rest stop and the tops of my legs were starting to get a bit tired. We only had about 12 miles or so to go. Scott told me to eat a banana for the leg pain I was having so I had that and a little cup of gummy bears. GUMMY BEARS omg they were so good. Oh and a smore! They had some smores made up. That thing was the bomb. At this point we had to figure out what direction we were supposed to be going. There were people leaving in both directions and we didn't see any of the arrows we were following pointing us in the direction we were supposed to go. Finally I pulled out my phone and found the email Scott had sent me with the map. We figured it out and went on our way.

We rode and rode and then there was another rest stop but we only had about 7 miles to go and I was feeling ok so I told Scott to just skip it. He went ahead and eventually I couldn't see where he was anymore. With about five miles to go the tops of my legs were really starting to hurt and I was just starting to feel really tired. I kept trying to figure out what street I was on and how close I was to the finish. I was so glad when I could finally see the last stretch!

I came in at just under 4 hours. I had my runkeeper set to auto pause so that is 4 hours of moving time. Not too bad!

When I rode in Scott was waiting for me at the finish. This was my "I'm tired face" haha

We rode our bikes over to the car and changed shoes and then walked back over to the food line. While we were waiting there we realized that the ticket we had taken off our numbers was for the meal. DOH. Just like before Scott ran back to get them. I thought they were for some kind of drawing or something. I swear I'm leaving all the shit together for whatever we do from now on. He got back from his run to the parking lot right before I got to the front of the line. We got our plates and our 3 slices of food (I know it was free food but man I was starving and they were skimpy!)  and ate it while walking to somewhere to sit. Never needed to sit since I ate it all standing up!

They had a board with some numbers of people that had won prizes and I WON something!! Another jersey top. Cool beans! I kind of wish Scott had won it since he rides more though.  They had free massages so I got one of those and thank God this guy made my kinked up neck feel better. It's still not 100% but I can turn it so much better now.Scott got a massage too. When we got in the car and started driving home it started raining! I'm so glad the rain held off until after we were done! We went home and laid on the couch and slept on and off for the rest of the day. I was so tired! And hungry! I just kept sleeping and then waking up, trying to read my book and eating haha.

I'm glad that ride is over now and I can go back to focusing on my running. Scott is signed up for a big scary ride next month but I totally opted out on that one. I'll stick to running for bit!