Spandex and Peddaling

I'm starting to second guess some of the activities I do for fun. 

I rode the ULCER ride again this year and opted for the 67 mile portion. 

The first 50ish miles were great.  

I'm not the fastest, but I just keep going. 

The last 12ish miles were DEATH!

I honestly thought I was going to kill myself, I was HOT, thirsty, hungry, out of water and ready to be done.

But I finished! 

Important lessons were learned during this ride:

A. Don't stay up late the night before the race.

B. Hydrate up the day before and the morning before the race.

C.  A mini Luna bar does not equal a breakfast for this long of a race.

D. Purchase a mini snack bag like Jilly so you can munch on treats easily during the ride. 

E. 67 mile rides you have to train for.

F.  Listening to LMFAO helps you get through the last few miles when you want to quit.

I was actually shocked how quickly my body recovered from this ride.  My legs weren't sore at all, I just craved a lot of water for the next 48 hours.  So I will take that compared to previous rides.

Little Red Riding Hood Bike Ride

 Friday afternoon, I receive a phone call from my friend Jill. 

"Hey Morg! What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?  You want to ride Little Red with me tomorrow?" 

That's just what I did.  

(I tried, to get in to this ride within the first 20 minutes registration opened and the site had crashed it was completely full) 

This was my second ride of the season, so I wasn't prepared at all.  

We did the 36 mile portion, and if it wasn't for the heat near the end I could have kept going.

The day definitely did not start off warm.  I received this text from my sissy that was doing the 80mile portion. 

 Within the first 10 miles, the sun started shining and things started heating up! 

So off went the jackets! 

 Jill and I had a great time together.  We just talked, laughed and pedaled!

Best part about the ride for Jill: Organic animal crackers at the stops

Best part about the ride for Me:  Coke at the finish line

 At the finish line I was able to meet up and hang with my sissy for a bit.  She killed it! 

Things to remember for next year:  

1. The race is about an hour north of Logan, so plan accordingly. 

2. When it is cloudy and rainy, still put on sunscreen even if you are wearing a jacket.  (I'm pretty sure you will be able to see this tanline the ENTIRE summer and probably took at least 5 years off my life.  I'm currently still radiating heat and incredibly red on my back, two days later!)

3. Don't wait until mid May for your first ride of the season. 

Just keep pedaling...

Who doesn't want to keep up at 5:00am on Saturday morning and ride 40 miles on your bike?  Well me and Julie didn't either but we went.  It sounded cooler prior to my alarm going off.  I had previously planned to ride this with my dear friends, Jill and Shaun. But due to there sweet little girl and the start time of the race they opted to sit out this year. So I called my sister and convinced her she needed to do this with me.  Always up for a challenge, she agreed. Julie slept over at my house, which depite how old you get you still can get the giggles with your sissy in bed.  When the alarm went off we both showered and put on our padded bikers.                                                                 

This was a first for both of us.  I had never gone this far on my bike.  The longest ride I had done was 18 miles so I was a little nervous and not to mention all of the "serious cyclist" are a little scary.  Julie and I had a great time.  It was so much spending some one-on-one time with my awesome sister.   

We finished our ride in a little over 3 hours.  That is a lot of "sit time" on your bike but after a while you can't feel anything!  :)  I'm grateful for days like this that I get to do new things and lucky enough to have a wonderful sister who is nice enough to say yes!   

(Also, thank you to our sponsors for our ride. We really missed you on our ride, Jill & Shaun.  But fully expect you to be there next year with me!)

Try, try TRI again

The day has finally come for the Layton Triathlon. This last weekend Natalie, Matt, Ashley, Gabe and I all competed in the race. We had a lot of fun doing this. Ashley and I have been training for the last couple of weeks together. I was not as nervous as I was last year, but once we started walking over to the pool my nervousness kicked in full force. The training has been awesome to be outside and it hasn't allowed me to put off working out to the next day (day after day). My goal was to beat my time from last year by 18 minutes and finish under an hour. Well that almost happened. I finished in 1:02. I was a little bummed that I missed it, but there is always next year.

Here is cute Gabers waiting for the Kid's Race to start. He did such an awesome job! He finished in 15 minutes! Fastest 6 year old of the whole race!

Me and Matt pre-race

Here is a pre-race faces! You should be very scared!

And let the race begin! Ash and I starting to get worn out by this point.

My stupid goggles starting fogging up to I did about half the swin with my goggles like this. Natalie kicking butt on her swim Lindsey and the boys were hanging out not quite expecting me to come back from the bike portion. Good news! I got unclipped from my petals without a problem. The bike portion was BY FAR my best section when last year it was my worst. Grateful for Ruby getting me from start to finish in a timely manner. Here is Ash finishing her run. She did an AMAZING JOB! Go, Philly! The run was AWFUL! After the first .25 mile I got the most intense Charlie Horse in my life in my calve. I never in my life have experienced one so painful. It was horrible. It slowed me down quite a bit. Still 36 hours later my calve is so tight. OUCH!

But here we are both finished! Lindsey came seconds after I crossed the finished line and said we needed a picture while we were both trying to catch our breath. If you look at my shirt you will notice when I changed after the swim I didn't get my arm in the top strap. So I biked and ran without my shirt on correct. SUPER CLASSY! Apparently, if you write a number on my arm I feel like I need to show it off in several pictures. I'm not really sure what that is about, but it just happened!

The four-Triers! My cute family. I love them and so grateful for them for ALWAYS supporting me. Philly placed in her age category. (There may have only been 2 people in her age category! :) She placed 2nd. I'm so proud of her!

Watch out, 1123 is hardcore!

I'm grateful to be able to do something to honor my Zachery. It helped my healing process A LOT last year and put my energy into something positive we were planning to do together and I had a lot of fun pushing myself and doing it again this year. I'm so thankful to have such awesome family & friends to not only support me and cheer me on but compete in the triathlon.

Until 2012...

A formal introduction...

Meet Ruby. She is my newest set of wheels. I purchased this gorgeous gal early spring and sad to say she hasn't hit the road nearly enough this year.

She is pretty, light and fast.

This last weekend, I decided that I no longer wanted to be a "newbie" biker and wanted to make the transition to clip in petals. I have been very nervous to have my feet stuck to my petals. All of my friends that cycle have all had their falls. My biggest fear is falling at a stop light and not being able to unclip or being by myself and not having anyone to laugh with. Either situation not funny. When I purchasing my petals and shoes at the shop, I was honest about my apprehension to making this change. Mikey, the awesome bike helper, assured me that I WOULD fall but I would learn very quickly. He talked me through everything. I didn't have my bike with me when I was at the shop otherwise I would have practiced with the pro. Instead of going and getting my bike and driving back up to Sugarhouse I decided to call my friend, Jarrod and have him put on my petals for me. Once we had the petals on he said he would help me learn how to clip in and out. He told me to go ahead on hop on and he would hold the bike. Me the trusting friend did just what he said, expecting he would be holding the bike. I was straddling the bike and decided I would clip my left foot in first. Well I did just that, except I forgot to shift my weight to my right side. So I went straight down and immediately fell to the ground. Jarrod's eye were huge and I'm sure I had quite the look on my face since he was suppose to be "holding the bike". No blood since we were on the grass just a hurt ego. I decided to get right back up and try again. This time Jarrod held the bike. I did this a few times but never felt real comfortable getting on myself. To save my ego, I said I would practice at home before I went on a ride in the morning. I immediately went home and parked my bike. There was absolutely no way I was trying that by myself. I would kill myself. Next morning, I was able to do it without a problem and went on a bike ride. Anytime I had to stop I did get a little nervous but it was starting to feel more natural. I was feeling like a pro. Here is where the blood and laughing comes in. Yesterday, I went on a bike ride did not have an issue with my clips or petals. I was getting in and out of them just fine. My dear friends, Ricky and Zac came over. I was showing them Ruby's new additions and telling them my story of falling the first time I clipped in. Of course, I couldn't have just told them, I had to demonstrate. The problem is, I demonstrated so good my left foot got stuck and I couldn't unclip and fell right on the cement. OUCH! Not only did my legs hurt but my ego was completely deflated. I was laughing and couldn't figure out why the back of my leg was burning... and looked back to find this. The gears had cut the back of my leg.

Let's just hope I have learned my lesson and don't have to show people my first fall again!