60 Miles Down!

Here are a couple pictures from my ride I did on Saturday. I made it...all 60 miles. Once again, this was a big challenge, but I'm so glad I did it. The best part about it was that a friend from Merit (Joy) rode with me. She is a very experienced rider and this 60 miles was a piece of cake for her, but she stuck by me and was very motivating. She taught me lots of good things about road biking and she was just awesome company. If it wasn't for her, I really wanted to give up at about mile 50. I had just hit a wall and was out of energy. We had this horrible head wind about the last 10 miles, but she took it slow with me and we went through the finish line together. It took about 6 hours to finish...and I literally teared up when I finished. I was so happy to have done it....and so happy to be done! :)

A little side note about this picture below....oh yeah...my first official crash. So we were at mile 30 and I was feeling great. That far had been so enjoyable and we were just cruising along. Well kind of hard to explain, but I was on the inside of Joy and I just thought the route we were taking went straight, but I guess we were supposed to turn. She signaled and everything, but I just wasn't paying attention. She turned right and I kept going straight and I clipped her back tire and I crashed hard. It felt like it happened in slow motion, and with my feet clipped in there was no way for me to catch my fall. I skidded across the road...I just remember my helmet scrapping along the road. I sat up and felt all shook up.....I looked behind me and there was a lady in a mini van that had stopped cause I was in the middle of the road. Joy came over and helped me up. I sat down for a little and was hurting pretty bad. My head was killing me...it just hit so hard. One of the SAG vehicles stopped to help and we cleaned up the wounds and took some Advil and we were back on our way. One of the things that I thought was pretty funny was, after this happened I thought "well I'm done". Like I couldn't really picture getting back on my bike, and the next thing I know Joy says, "well probably the sooner you get back on your bike the better". It was just so funny...it was like in her head there wasn't any reason I shouldn't get back on on keep going. So....that's what I did....I got back on and kept going! Today my whole left side is so sore, hip, shoulder, head, knee and wrist. Oh well, what a good experience it all was! Another ride that I will have to do next year!