Tour De Rock

I need your help friends... this Saturday we are participating in the 5th annual CARTI Tour de Rock Bike Ride. The Cabot Cruisers have a team and so far we have the most members and have raised over $600.00 I'm so proud of everyone for partcipating and donating and wanted to give my friends and family who read this blog a chance to help in the fight against Cancer.

If you follow this link it will take you to mine and Arland's sponser page, we appreciate any donations large or small!!

This past Sunday Arland and I met Bailey and Curtis at the Dog Park so that we could get in a long ride to prepare for the Tour de Rock. I hadn't been on my bike since the Duathalon and I was pretty nervous about the Tour. We brought along the ice chest and some pretzels etc.since we knew we would be passing back by the dog park somewhere in the middle of our ride.

Bailey and I had our first lesson in chaging a tire/tube... luckily she noticed before we even started that she had a hole in her tube and Curtis changed it for her, he was very good about telling/showing us how to do it and he made it look very easy but I know that I am going to freak out the first time I have to do that on my own!

Finally we were on our way, it must have been almost noon by the time we got started and it was HOT..HOT..HOT and HUMID!!!! It was 95 degrees and the sun was blazing!!! Believe it or not there were a few crazy people out there still running.

The first part of the ride was great it was fairly flat and had some nice shady spots... and then.... The BIG DAM BRIDGE!! I had been dreading this... Curtis was right there behind me and I was barely making it up the incline, finally just before I got to the crest he told me what to change my gears to and it made a huge difference. DAMN why didn't he tell me before????? LOL

So I made it up the bridge and now for the descent, well this scared me as much as going up, there are other bikes, walkers, dogs, runners, skateboards etc sharing a narrow road and it is a pretty steep descent, I pretty much rode my brakes most of the way down.

After the bridge Curtis decided we would play Fox and Hound one rider would go out with a mile or two lead and then the rest were supposed to work together to catch him. Arland was our Fox and after a few minutes Curtis sent Bailey on her way to catch him and then he and I left. Bailey is a very strong biker and she did eventually catch him, Curtis stayed with me for quite a while and then he stopped for some reason, I can't remember what and he told me to go on.... next thing you know I hear what sounds like a car passing me and I look over and it is Curtis, he was FLYING and although he gave Arland a huge lead he also caught up with him before the designated turn around.... and then there is me, the turtle, I have to admit that I do love my bike and I love bike riding but that wasn't much fun for me. I spent the whole time bringing up the rear with Curtis circling back for me a lot. He was great though and gave me lot's of tips and tried to help me with the gearing.

We rode from the Dog Park, back to just past the I-430 bridge, back to the Dog Park. I had gotten a dull headache early on during the ride and thought maybe it was just the heat, when we got back to the truck I took some ibuprofen, we ate a banana some pretzels and drank some gatorade. I felt revived but still had that damn headache. From this point we are going to head out in the opposite direction on the River Trail to the "submarine"/Alltel Arena area. It's a lot hillier this way with a couple of good climbs, again I was bringing up the rear the whole time, my head was killing me and I was feeling discouraged about my lack of speed, but I tried to make the best of it andjust enjoy the fact that it was a beautiful day.

Finally we made it to The Submarine, there is also a River boat docked there that goes out on dinner Cruises... Luckily there is also a bathroom. I decided when I came out of the bathroom to take my helmet off for a minute... WELL.... I don't know how I didn't notice this before, but I had my helmet on so tight that I almost couldn't get it off... I started to panic a little but it came off and I almost instantly felt my headache go away. OMG how dumb am I????? I had these big dents in the side of my head!! I was so mad at myself but so relieved that the pain had gone away!! LOL The ride back to the Dog Park was much better, I was still last but it didn't bother me as much... and then we came to the wooden bridge... there were some mountain bikers coming and i kind of freaked out a little and crashed into the wooden railings, I didn't fall off but I'm shocked my arm isn't full of splinters from the railing. I was very shaky and thankful that I still had a little bit of time to compose myself before catching up to the others.

I ended up with a little over 27 miles at a 13.7 avg pace. Considering the traffic on the River Trail, the hills, the heat and other factors I don't think that was too terrible. I can only get better... right???

It was definately a full weekend... the Mt. Magazine 15K on Saturday, Dinner out with the Harrell's, up early again on Sunday for a 5 mile run with Heather, Joan, Kelly, Cheryl and Robert, and then we capped it off with a 27 mile bike ride and lunch/dinner at Chili's with Bailey. I was pretty much toast by the time we got home on Sunday evening.