50 Mile Weekend

35 mile bike ride on Saturday + 15 mile run on Sunday = 50 miles :)

Saturday: Tour de Rock

I woke up Saturday morning around 3 and it was lightening and thundering like crazy, it was still early so I wasn't too worried, but it definately lit up the bedroom for a good while.

I got up at 5:00am which felt like sleeping compared to the 4:15 I was getting up during my early morning runs during the week.

We had everything ready the night before so it was mostly a matter of getting dressed, having a light breakfast and waiting for Bailey.

Bailey picked us up and the bikes were loaded and we were on our way to SSE to meet the others. It was a bit smaller crowd than we were expecting, but with the rain we knew some might drop out.

Bailey was leading the caravan to NLR... Rock was riding with Cindy and sent Arland a text message asking Bailey to slow down!!! Later that afternoon when we got home there was a message from Jane (she thought she had called my cell) she said to tell Bailey she didn't need to drive like a bat out of hell!! LOL

With Bailey as the lead car we made it to Burns Park in record time and we were early as usual.

We picked up our packets, I used the restroom, of course I went to the one that was .5 mile away from the cars, went to it twice before I realized there was one much closer to us. Oh well I ran between the car and the restroom and considered that my warm up.

It had been raining all morning, sometimes it would let up and then it would come down a little bit harder. I was afraid they might cancel the event but they only postponed it for 30 minutes.

On the way to the start line I had been keeping my eyes open for Gabriel and finally I spotted her. I walked over and said hi and introduced myself.. I was wearing my Cabot shirt so I'm pretty sure she knew it was me before I even opened my mouth! LOL

They divided the riders into groups based on the mileage they were planning to ride. Gabriel was doing the 30 mile route, she is still recovering from a pretty bad bike accident a couple of months ago. Since she couldn't ride with her friend she lined up with us. Curtis also lined up with us, I was SO excited. Curtis is an excellent biker and probably would have been pulling Arland, Gary, Rock etc if he had chosen that mileage. He was doing a "time trial" today so he didn't want to do a long hard ride. It was Me, Jane, Curtis, Gabriel, Joan and Lisa Ford. Joan, Joan, Joan what can I say, she is just such an inspiration. She is 65 years old and runs marathons in 4:30, she has mentored so many new runners and is one of my favorite people to run with. She has not been riding very much lately, as a matter of fact she said she rode 6 mile in May and that was the only time she had been on her bike since last year. Oh and I should mention her bike is a hybrid with the big mountain bike tires.

When the Tour started Jane, Curtis and I started off pretty slow, we didn't want to get into a big bunch, the roads were wet, it was still raining and it all just spelled disaster if you weren't careful.
On the first hill it really slowed down and I looked up and saw Joan walking her bike, she said she was ok, she had just messed up her gears but they were fine.

I made it up that hill ok, but I didn't change gears when I should have and it was hard!!

Soon after after that we saw a big jamup just before the wooden bridge, people were walking their bikes up to the bridge and then getting on and riding across. As we were approaching the group Jane and I were talking about how clip in pedals made us nervous etc. Well right on cue a girl didn't get clipped out soon enough and boom landed on the ground. She was fine!

One funny thing about riding in the rain/wet roads is that the water coming off the bike tire hits your rear and it looks like you have a fountain coming out of your butt!! I of course found this hilarious and every person that we passed that I knew I would say hey you have water coming out of your butt. What can I say I am easily amused... but you know what's really funny is I didn't think about the fact that I had the same thing going on.

Curtis stayed with me and Jane the whole time, he was so great about telling us when we were going to turn..... well except that one time when he took us straight instead of turning!! everyone was yelling at us so we didn't get very far.

We did see a scary crash, we had been warned about the railroad tracks at the start and just before we got to them Curtis had been telling us how to cross them, well I just got behind him and followed, as we were going over them a group of girls were on the side of us and one of them crashed, poor thing she really landed hard, we stopped to make sure she was ok, she said she was and I think was embarassed by all the attention so we went on.

We also saw a lot of people on the side of the road with flats, but there was always someone there to help them. We also noticed that anytime one member of a group had a problem the whole group stopped and they worked together to fix whatever it was.

We were riding pretty hard but it felt good!! About mile 12 or so we came upon the first aid station. I can not say enough good things about the volunteers at this event, they definately took great care of us. They had banana's oranges, granola bars, water, gatorade etc. They also had pickles..yummy!!

Oh one of the funniest things....I had noticed it at the restrooms at the socceer field and it was even more noticeable at the rest stop. The line for the men's room was 5 times as long as for the women's room. As a matter of fact at the socceer field there was no line for the ladies room but there had to be at least 12-15 guys waiting for the men's room. At the aid station it was an even longer line for the guy's port-a-pottie. They had a pink one and a blue one.

We met back up with Gabriele at the aid station and she rode the rest of the course with us :)

One thing about riding with Curtis is don't expect a leisurely ride!! He only lead a couple of times, but because I didn't want to hold him back when it was my time to lead I would try to ride as hard as I could. Another thing about riding with Curtis is he makes you feel like a superstar!! He is always telling us how great we are. Who doesn't love that!!

Gabriele and I got a pretty good lead at one time, we were just riding and chatting and it was great. She is a very strong biker and could have just left us in her dust but I'm so glad she rode along with us it was nice getting to know her. She is a sweetheart!!!

At the second aid station we stoped again and had gatorade and pickles. We also waited for Joan and Lisa, had someone take a picture of our backsides etc, It was here that I mentioned to the girls that my shorts were so wet that I could pee in my pants and no one would know. Of course that is gross and I would never do that... on purpose! LOL

Gabriele, Curtis, Me and Jane

Dirty backs...

We were only supposed to have 5 miles left after the aid station but we ended up with 35 instead of 30 so I'm guess we had 10 more... I know it felt like it! Again things were going along fine, the girls would take turns leading. One time I did get on Curtis's wheel and that was cool but it's hard to maintain that pace! Just after we went back across the railroad tracks we had gotten behind a couple of big guys on mountain bikes, Jane and Curtis were able to get around them pretty quick but a car was coming so Gabriele and I hung back and by the time we finally did get around them we had lost Curtis and Jane... oh we could see them up ahead but we or actually I couldn't catch back up. I was also starting to get a little tired and was falling off pace. Gabriele stuck with me the whole time and believe me I really appreciated it!!!

It was pretty cool when we were approaching the finish line I could hear Brenda yelling my name and others too :) that was a great feeling going across the finish line, but it was also a little anticlimatic since there weren't many people around. I was just glad to get my butt off that damn skinny little seat!! Actually I have a great seat and it doesnt' cause me too much discomfort, and truthfully it is more comfortable than that big ol gel cushion seat on my comfort bike!

Gabriel went to find her husband and I went over to Brenda.. she walked with me to Bailey's car and helped me get my bike on the rack.

So now I realize that I am the first one back and I don't have a key... I am soaking wet from head to toe and I can't change clothes :( oh and not just wet but filthy I also have dirt/bugs from head to toe. Oh well nothing to be done so Curtis, Brenda and I headed over to the good... I was squishing the whole time!

It was so cool of Brenda to come and cheer us on!!!! She had done a long run with Lisa and Andrea and it would have been easy for her to stay home and recover.

Jane was able to change clothes but she had to get back so we said good-bye to her. We actually didn't head straight to the food, we were waiting for Joan and Lisa to come in. It took them a little longer than we expected, but we soon saw why. Joan was riding on a flat tire!!! It had happened about 4 miles from the finish, a fellow biker had offered her a tube but she declined.. they aired her's up for her but it didn't last long and so she road the last couple of miles with a flat... not an easy thing to do!!!

We knew it was going to be awhile before the others came in so we headed over to the food tent...along the way we signed up to win a new bike. Of course we didn't :( oh well.

What we did win was the Team spirit trophy!!!!! How cool is that??? It is a travelling trophy they will have our name engraved on it and we get to keep it until next year... we will bring it back and hopefully win it again.

Arland and Bailey did a great job getting a team together, and we can't thank all of you who donated to the cause enough... thank you!!!!

Bailey, Rock, Arland, Gary and Cindy all did the 62 mile route, and they all still had smiles on their faces when they finished. Bailey was a little bit behind the others she was riding with Lisa M. the first thing she said as she was walking towards the car was "I need food and I need a new vagina"!!!!!!!!!!!!! First thing I said to her was I need to get out of these freaking wet clothes!!! Although my shirt had dried but shorts were still soaked and it was probably almost 2 hours since I had finished my ride... ok maybe on 1.5 hours but still that's a long time to sit in wet shorts.. I felt like a baby who needed a diaper change!
It felt SO good to finally be out of those wet clothes!!!

It was almost 1:15 by the time we headed to the Salty Parrot to have celebatory margarita's. We were celebrating the fact that Gary Boston Qualifed "BQ'd" at the San Diego Marathon on June 2.

It was after 3 when we finally got home... talk about a long day, and I still needed to go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make enchilada's for Father's day lunch.

Arland has some more pictures on his blog....

Sunday: 15 mile run

Cheryl, Michele and Kelly are all out of town and no one else needed a 15 mile run, but because I have such great running buddies I was able to organize a long run and a group of people to run different distances with me. Bailey and Jackie met me at SSE at 5:15... well I was a little late :* more like 5:25. We ran from SSE to Team 1 and Brenda and Andrea were waiting for us there. It was a great morning, much cooler than it has been, my car said it was 67 degrees. We had a good run to Team 1, although I did feel like I could use the bathroom it was never an emergency situation. Bailey also felt the possible need so we met up with the girls and then we headed over to the Shell station. Once that was taken care of we headed down 1st street... I was feeling good and then once again I felt like I could use the bahtroom, luckily my house was about a mile away at that point. Arland had called and he was going to meet us and run with us from home, well when we got to my house, nothing happened. Oh well a wasted stop and I was bummed because it was already 6:30... my plan had been to hopefully finish the 10.5 mile loop in time to meet up with the 7:00 group. Oh well I knew Arland was stuck with me so I was hoping he would at least run a few more miles with me.

We kept up a really good pace but once again just before the Phillip's 66 station I felt that urge so we stopped... this time it was a successful trip. The sun had come out and it was starting to heat up but I was still feeling pretty good and we were hitting some long shady patches. About mile 9 I was starting to feel a little fatigued, and was worried about my will to finish 15.... well just then I see two runners up ahead heading toward us. It was Joan and Jane, they had seen all the cars at the school and I think they knew or guessed that we had done the 10.5 mile loop so they just headed in that direction to find us :) I was beyond thrilled. Jackie was with me at that point and I could tell she was also happy for me... I let the other girls go and I fell in with Joan and Jane, we discussed what route we wanted to run, Joan suggested New Country...... at first I said NO!! I hate New Country it is hilly and snakey... but it is also shady so I gave in. It really worked out well. We ran that loop and then ran up Panther Trail, to Kerr, back to 321 and I got in exactly 15 miles!! The last 5 miles were really slow, the faster pace of the first 10 and the heat combined to really wear me out but I was very proud of that run. I ended up with an avg pace of 11:19 not bad for 15 miles!

1- 9:52

2- 10:00

3- 10:35

4- 10:33

5- 9:58
6- 10:00

7- 10:58

8- 10:21

9- 11:32

10- 11:55

11- 12:17

12- 12:23

13- 13:33

14- 11:52

15- 13:43

You can definately tell where it started going down hill!!!! LOL

After the run Arland and I made a stop at Mountain Mudd and then jumped in the pool when we got home. AHHHHH that was awesome, the water was nice and cool and it felt like a little slice of heaven!! well it did after I got over the shock of realizing that I had a few chafed spots!!! AWWW the joys of summer running!!

After that it was a quick bowl of cereal and then time to start making enchiladas!!!

We had about 20 people over for Father's day lunch... it was pot luck so that was nice, I only had to make enchilada's. We had a packed house and a lot of people enjoyed the pool. It was a great day!!! Last year on Father's day my dad was hear and we had a huge cook out. That morning I had done my longest run ever.. 11 miles and I was wiped out the rest of the day and couldn't really enjoy the company. Today not only did I run 15 miles but I had done a 35 mile bike ride the day before and yet I was kind of tired but I felt good and I did enjoy having everyone over!!