Riding in 2013!

 Last year the Witches Ride was my sister Kammy's and my first organized ride. 

(We did it because we were one of the first 100 to sign up and got in for free!) 

Of course we HAD to buy a jersey! 

This was us at the starting line:

Up until that point I had never ridden more than 23 miles and NEVER a real hill. (Just Bullion to get out of my subdivision which is what? .15 of a mile?)

I was riding my husbands bike, with his shoes, his helmet and even his sun glasses. 

The entire ride took me 5 hours and about 30 minutes.  I seriously thought I was going to die during those last 20 miles. My feet were numb. My who-ha was numb and my behind just ached!  

Around mile 28 is the "Witches Hat" hill.  A 3 mile hill climb with a 10% incline the last mile. I had to walk the last mile or so. I was going so slow I thought I might fall over with my shoes pegged into my bike. 

But I finished! Here we are at the finish line last year:

The fact that I had finished was an accomplishment in itself AND despite my pain and suffering, I got bit by the bug. 

The bike bug.

So did my sister. 

This is what we wanted to do! 

Ride our bikes!!

I made a few personal goals last year:

#1 I wanted to own my own bike

#2 I wanted to be 20 pounds lighter

#3 I wanted to ride up that hill next year and not stop!

Buying my bike was the first step. 

This is my baby. 

My Felty.....

I rode it as much as I could until the snow came. 

Boo. I hate the cold. 

I hated it more walking past my bike and heading to the gym for spin class. I am a cold weather spinner. But I knew I needed to keep up my riding and eventually I came to like tolerate spin class. 

I started getting my own shoes, helmet, sun glasses and many shorts and jerseys. Bike shopping is fun. Expensive but fun. 

I even bought winter gear and got out on my bike for the first time in 2013 on February 19th:

I'm lucky to have a cycling husband (or weekend warrior) and I talked him into his first organized ride with me in Mesquite March 17th. Love biking with him. He's faster - especially down hill - but I sure like biking with him.

Then my sister and ride rode/swam the Goldilocks Ride:

(It rained the entire time!) 

We signed up for a 60 but turned around at 20 - Kammy was getting hypothermia. Then we got lost and ended up riding 24 miles? We had to wring our our socks. We were that wet! 

Our next ride was Pedal Fest - we rode 50 but felt like we could have gone longer. This is us at the start:

I even tried mountain biking with my sister and sister in law. Yeah. That was sort of scary and I have a scar on my knee still from my crash into the side of the mountain. 

My BFF Amy trained with me all summer. 

And I made it a point to take my bike on all our camping/motorcycling trips. 

This is Amy and I on our Wyoming Women's Retreat - we brought our bikes there too! 

And we took her on her first organized ride - Little Red!

50 miles!

So, here I am a year later - heading back to Witches Ride.

My 70 mile ride.

Yep. I have my own bike - shoes - helmet - glasses - the works!

Buying a new bike lost me an automatic 5 pounds and I lost another 15 off of myself. :)

Over the summer I tried to ride every day - or at least 60-70 miles a week but right before Witches Ride I started working on hills. Emmigration. Three times the week before!

 My first time on the summit:

And brought these ladies:

Amy & Dawna

 Ride #2 we brought Sara

And one more time with my sister Kammy (but we forgot to take pictures!) 

Now, anyone that knows me - knows my love for theater and dressing up so this year this was my outfit for the ride. 

We checked into Brigham City Crystal Inn - had a fun dinner with many of my friends riding and then back to the hotel room to get our "tats"! 

Amy, Dawna, Kammy and I shared a room. Sara drove up the next morning. 

My 24 hour fitness friends were there too; Kari, Dawna, MaryAnn, Erin, Carrie and Camille and we met a few new friends.

It was COLD that morning but here we are before the ride.

Dawna, Me, Kammy, Sara, Amy

Lining up at the starting line.....

And our extended group of friends....

We took off and set our pace. We weren't the fastest but we were not the slowest either. (My sister and I are pretty evenly paced so we usually stick together. Our goal was to improve our time from last year.) There were about three or four clumps of riders ahead of us and I told Kammy to take off - we were going to close the gap between us and the next group. She took off and I was right behind her until I thought I hit a rock or something but no,  a rock would have been better. The computer on my back wheel that wirelessly sends data to my bike computer fell off. This was at mile 4.61 - I know this because that's when my computer stopped. I stopped but had been going pretty fast and was quite a ways away from where it would have fallen off and decided there was no way I could find it. I also realized I had only two songs on my playlist because I was showing Amy who Macklamore was. There's no way I could listen to two Maclamore songs for the entire 70 miles so I had to adjust my playlist. By now I was pretty far behind Kammy and was on my own. I got to the first stop. No Kammy. But that's okay. My sister had been having some serious health issues over the summer and I was thrilled to know she was making good time and pushing herself. I sent a picture of myself to my hubby telling him about losing my computer. Oh, and I noticed my heart rater monitor wasn't working either. Not my best technology day.
Dawna had caught up to me and we set out together. 

I took off hoping to catch up with my sister and I knew the hill was coming up. All along I'd either catch up to or a group of riders or a group would catch up to me and we would ride together. There is strength in numbers. Riding in a peloton gives you such a break and riding in a group of women is empowering. 

I hit the hill on my own. 

I just want to make it to the top without stopping. 

I want to stay on my bike.

The first 2 miles were okay, but that last mile was really hard. I would play mind games with myself, and not look up past the top of my glasses during the song on my headphones. Then I'd glance up and look back down. 

I was almost to the top and I looked up to see a lone rider cheering me on at the top of the hill. Was it my sister? It was!! 

At that moment I thought of all she'd been through this summer and how much I loved her and how proud I was of her to be up there already and  I realized that I was going to make. it. up. this. hill! I started to cry. Now crying and biking up a steep hill are not very compatible so I am sucking in air and gasping for breath between sobs. Oh yeah, it was lovely. I was just so overly emotional. 

I made it! 

Here we are at the top of the hill:

Dawna made it up a little while later:

And just as we were heading down so did Amy and Sara! 

The two mile down hill is usually my favorite part but with my dumb (but very appropriate and much complimented) Malificent witches hat on my helmet, my head was being pushed back while I was traveling at a speed of 42 or 43 miles per hour. I was having a hard time tucking my head down. I wasn't thinking about arrow dynamics when I choose my costume? Oh, and my witch glasses did nothing for wind resistance. Tears were streaming down my face - and this time I wasn't crying! 

We had one more organized stop/break and fueled up on fruit. (They have more than fruit but I don't eat refined sugar or grains so fruit it was!) 

The ride from there on out was just a test of endurance. I think we had about 25 miles left.  It was very windy. At one point we were only going 10 miles her hour. 

We were drafting with Erin and Dawna for awhile but then Dawna dropped off and Erin got ahead so 

Kammy and I rode side by side and talked to pass the time.

We took our own unofficial stop about 10 miles before the finish at a gas station to add ice and water to our bottles and split my last fruit roll up. It was so nice to get off our bikes for a minute. 

They added some rolling hills at the end that we didn't have last year. Yeah. In the last 2 miles! 

But we finished!!

According to my Strava I had 4 hours and 49 minutes on my bike. 41 minutes faster than last year! AND I MADE IT UP THE HILL WITHOUT STOPPING!!!

Here's Kammy and I at the finish line:

 And here we all are! 

We all made it, all 70 miles! 

I was so proud of myself and my fabulous friends!

(Don't look at my hair - I had a really bad case of helmet hair!) 

Biking has shown me just how tough I am. How much I can endure and that my body is capable and strong. I love my bike and I love my crazy friends that bike with me!! 

Oh and the next morning while getting ready for church I notice my wind/sunburn - except where my bat tattoo was.