Kristen, Me, Lani
Molly and Me
(We trained for our half marathon together)
Team Mud Mohawks before the race
BFFs
While training for my first half marathon, my friend Janel had mentioned the Tour de Cure and how she rides it to raise money for diabetes, which runs in her family. I didn't know much about it, and thankfully diabetes has yet to affect anyone in my family, but I said "sure, why not ride in it". She told Kristen and me about the struggles her team faced last year, including flat tires and poor weather, and the need to train for the ride. Kristen and I hopped on our bikes and went for a 16 mile cruise. We thought 16 miles was cake, so 40 would be no big deal, so we sort of "slacked" on the training. And by slacked, I mean that 16 mile ride we took was the ONLY form of bike race training we did.
Our team, Team Mud
Mohawks, held a fundraiser Memorial Day weekend at Sully's Pub which was a huge
success on multiple accounts. We raised money, we had a good time, and Beaker
came for a visit. Beaker is my drunken alter ego, when he visits, it
means my voice goes up a couple of octaves, and those that know me are well
aware that narcolepsy sets in quickly and I pass out wherever is most
convenient. I won the 50/50 raffle at the fundraiser, and donated all but
$40 back, but then felt guilty for keeping 40 as money to buy everyone drinks
with, and threw that in the tip bucket for donation. We had Wilford Brimley stick masks to play with courtesy of Stacey. Brimley was a spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, or as he would say and so did we in our drunken rants "Diabeeeetuuuus".
The day before the
Tour de Cure, I went to Towpath Bike Shop and purchased a helmet which was
mandatory, riding gloves (which I ended up returning) and a bike riding skort
with padded booty. I looked legit.
The Tour de Cure
took place Sunday, June 10th. It was a BEAUTIFUL day for bike riding. Our
team got on the road around 8:30 and away we went. The hills were awful,
that's something I supposed I should have trained for... I took advantage
of rest stops to hydrate and eat. Kristen and I planned to ride 40 miles,
but if that felt too hard we would drop down to 20 miles. At our first
rest stop we decided we were going big, and going to show this 40 mile bike
ride who is boss.
Hardcore bikers
that train and ride daily were passing us and cheering us on, saying how brave
we are to ride 40 miles on a mountain bike. I had no idea what this meant
at first, but then looking at almost EVERYONE else with a road bike and skinny
tires peddling with ease, I knew that Kristen and I were in for a major
workout.
The ride took us
about 4.5 hours, which included resting, water stops, and killer hills. I
am lucky I got to complete this with my very best friend. We encouraged
each other to keep going, stopped and rested together when we needed to, and
shouted profanity when times got tough. I am so proud of her for doing
the 40 mile ride by my side.
We had envisioned
a big celebration on a patio with cocktails and appetizers after the ride, but
we were beat. We mixed up some cucumber coolers at her house, which was
organic cucumber vodka, club soda, fresh lime, cucumber and mint muddled with a
cucumber garnish, something we just whipped up. Janel came over to
celebrate our team victory. Brian cooked us an awesome dinner of grilled
veggies to put on our salads.
All in all, it was
a successful first Tour de Cure, which I plan to partake in next year, and this
time rent a road bike for $50 at Towpath, which I found out you can do from
another rider as we were just approaching the finish line. She said she
gave us a ton of credit for riding 40 miles on mountain bikes, and asked why we
didn’t rent road bikes. I said "No one told me that was an
option"; she replied "Well I'm telling you now". I pretty
much crossed the finish line shouting "Well NOW ya tell me!"
Victory!
