Bike For Sale

That is the title I planned for my blog post sharing all the nitty gritty details of my Goldilocks ride.  I came up with it around mile 16.  Don't you come up with blog titles while going throughout your day?  Seriously, I can't be the only one that does that.  Anyway...mile 16...bike for sale.  But let me back up a little.

My day began bright and early.  Well, early.  At 5:30 AM.  When I dragged my sagging behind out of bed.  Luckily I found some padded bike shorts for under $100 so the sagging wasn't as obvious.  CG and I got ready and let the girls sleep as long as possible.  But we still had to be to the park by 7 AM.  Although that didn't happen, it was the goal.  I also made an eclair cake.  Because...well, there is good reasoning behind my blog name.

So, we left and the girls were already happy and loud which made CG really look forward to the day.  I was fine, but a little nervous.  I was only a little nervous because I foolishly thought that a 20 mile ride was a reasonable expectation.  Oh, how naive.  I continually amaze myself.

The lovely ladies that I signed up with were doing the 40 mile ride and I was doing the 20 mile ride, but they let us start together since things were running a little behind.  Before we were even out of the park I was suckin' wind.  And I thought to myself, "Self, you really should have brought your inhaler".  Yes, you read that right.  My smart self completely forgot to take my inhaler.  For, ya know, asthma attacks.  Again, I amaze myself.

It probably goes without saying that I couldn't keep up with my 40-miler friends.  I did catch up for about 5 seconds while going down a hill.  But then there was the uphill part.  Back to suckin' wind for me.  I did manage to pass one person at one point but I lost count of how many people passed me.  That's not really something that I wanted to keep track of anyway.  Focusing on the positive....

My cute family met me at Skye Park where there was a rest stop.  This was about 10 miles into the race.  The first half was down and all I had left was the last half.  I was halfway done!  Well, almost half way done.  I had read that the actual route was 21 miles so that's what I was working towards.  Getting back on that bike at the rest stop was so hard.  There was my cute family hanging out at the park and the van that could carry me and my bike off into the sunset.  But I had to finish.  For many reasons.

Right around mile 12 is where things got a little...ugly.  Painful actually.  Excruciatingly painful.  And I have a pretty high pain tolerance.  Really, I do.  When I had Lolly, I was in labor for 30 hours with the first 15 hours of back labor being epidural free.  But I didn't cry.  When I was induced with Babs and I would have 3 contractions in a row, a 30 second break and then 3 more contractions, still I didn't cry.  I even managed to be polite when informing the nurse that I was ready for my blessed epidural.  I can take a lot.  By mile 13 I was a crying mess trying really hard to suck it up and stop crying already.  You just can not even imagine how embarrassing it is to tell you that.  And yet here I am....sharing it.

Now to be honest, I'm not really sure if it's because of my little issue or because I was that unprepared or maybe a combination of both.  I mean, I've been an off and on again spinner for 3.5 years and have been doing fairly well in my recent spin classes.  It's not like I haven't been on a bike in ten years and then signed up to bike 20 miles.  I really thought that I had set a reasonable goal.  Are you amazed at my stupidity yet?  Because that will be happening any minute now...

But I kept going.  Into the wind.  Through blood, sweat and tears.  Doing the walk of shame up every. single. hill. on the second half of the ride.  Even though a quick rescue was just a simple phone call away.  You must really be questioning my sanity now.  But I have a very good reason.  Two reasons to be exact.

These two girls, along with their very supportive Daddy, were waiting for me at the finish line.  Cheering me on.  And especially for one little girl who is scared of trying new things.  Because they need to see that you can do hard things.  Even when it totally sucks.

So I dragged my sorry self across the finish line, which thankfully came just after a down hill or I probably wouldn't have made it.  Unfortunately, I didn't feel triumphant in finishing.  I just felt like a total loser that it was so ridiculously hard for me to finish those blasted 20 miles.  22 miles, to be exact.  I also felt pain.  A lot of pain.  But I did finish.  And I stumbled into a neighboring field where I cried and stretched and pathetically cried some more.  Then I got up and carried on.  And got some ibuprofen.  Hopefully next time, I will have the same happy glow upon finishing that I saw on the other riders.  I might even say it's "fun".  Stranger things have happened.