Here's the low down: one member of your 3 person team riding around on a 400meter track with other cyclists during a 6 hour period on January 25 while raising money for the American Cancer Society. Did he say January 25? It's frigid cold in January and that is why we ride indoors. Riding outside sounds completely insane in January. Oops, I just said the word insane that must mean the BB ladies are IN.
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| Registration is complete. The Bouncing Buns will be participating in our first group cycling event. |
Right before the CancerThon, we made a substitution for our team. Leandra would be cycling instead of Shelley (swim meet conflict). Leandra, in my opinion, has one of the coolest bikes ever. It's totally old-school with bottom tube gear shifters, it's bright neon yellow (I love bright colors because it's easier to spot from a distance) and the bike is just the perfect fit for Leandra. I'm so glad that she was willing to fill in for Shelley. After some brainstorming, we decided each person would ride a total of 2 hours and we came up with the following schedule:
Van: 10am-12noon
Leandra: noon-1pm
Jackie: 1pm-2:30pm (Jackie is in Week 1 of IM trng & needed a 90min ride--see "About Jackie")
Leandra 2:30-3:30pm
Jackie 3:30-4pm
An hour before the event start, I was so focused on making sure I had my helmet (it's been awhile since I've had to wear it because of all the indoor riding) that, as I backing out of my driveway I realized that I had forgotten to put my road bike on my car rack. Yikes, this is not starting out very well.
Once I reached the event location, I gathered all my gear and headed to check-in. After check-in, I realized I had another problem--I left my bento box on Celo (he's my triathlon bike and I ride Celo 99% of the time). I decided not to ride Celo for this event because I thought it might be a little more trickier to handle with all the turns. For nutrition during my ride, I was planning on eating 2-3 mandarin oranges (my stomach does not do well with gels) but without my bento box, I didn't have anywhere to put my oranges. As Brendan waved everyone to the start line, I stuffed one of my un-peeled oranges in my jacket pocket.
The weather was fairly warm (in the upper 30's) for this time of the year, but still cold. However, the wind was wicked. All I could think of was how insane this was. Turn 2 and 3 was straight into head wind but I found relief from the wind at turns 1 and 4. At about the hour mark of riding, I spotted a friend coming to watch her husband race. As I passed her on one of the laps, I yelled "Amber, can I ask I favor?" She yelled back "Yes!" When I passed her on my next lap, I handed her my orange and asked her to peel it. On my next pass, she handed it back to me. I was so thankful she was there to help because it was going to get ugly if I didn't get some nutrition other than the water I was carrying on my bike.
As I approached my 2 hour riding mark, Leandra was waiting on her bike in the pit stop area. I yelled to her that I had one lap to go. After 2 hours of riding and cranking out 30 miles for our team, I pulled into the pit stop area behind Leandra. I was finished and now it was her turn. Go, Leandra, go!
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| Pit stop, rider exchange area |
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| Go, Leandra, go! |
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| Jackie whizzed by on her super fast bike |
3 BB girls + 6 hours = 91.53 combined miles ridden for a great cause. Maybe it wasn't such an insane idea after all. AND...to top it all off, our team won 1st place in the Women's Division.
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| Sporting our cool trophy and door prizes. Thanks Santa Fe Bike Shop!! |
Week 3 of my IM training is now in the books with Sunday being a rest day--yay for rest days!
Week 4 is a recovery week with fitness tests scheduled in the 3 disciplines. Stay turned for my results...
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