Little Red Riding Hood Century

(A women-only ride)
Wellsville, Utah
Saturday, June 6, 2009
103 miles

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Little Red's mission:
"We strive to create an environment that promotes a strong sisterhood for exercising our bodies and clearing our head for a day of cycling in beautiful Cache Valley. As a strong sisterhood we help raise money for women's cancer research. We're proud of LRRH's 2009 charity — University of Utah's Eccles Institute of Human Genetics, lead by Dr. Mario Capecchi, a 2008 Noble Prize recipient. "

This event actually started on Friday evening with a wonderful Hawaiian Luau. My mom and sister, Hali, drove down from Canada and met me, Tara (my sister-in-law) and Becca (my neighbor friend) in Wellsville. We checked in, picked up our goodie bags, then got in line for the feast. It was delicious! Becca's spin class buddy, Melanie, also joined us for the festivities. For entertainment they had a Hawaiian family do some dancing while the dad played the ukelele and sang. For the final act, the dad even did a fire dance. It was awesome! The weather cooperated for the most part. There was a little stretch where the wind picked up and the clouds looked ready to dump some rain, but luckily we stayed dry the whole night. After the entertainment was done, we headed to our favorite spot in Logan--Charlie's Ice Cream--for some dessert. Then we were off to the hotel to get our gear ready.

Saturday morning was cloudy and it had rained pretty hard throughout the night. But the rain stayed away for most of the morning, so that was nice. Tara's knee had been bugging her lately (she had knee surgery last year) and wasn't sure if she would be able to ride. :( She decided to forgoe the century and maybe try to do one of the shorter distances. So Hali, Becca, my mom and I headed to the starting line bright and early. We grabbed a few bites of breakfast and then got in line for the 7:30 am start. This year was nice because they did staggered start times for the different distance options. The 100-milers started first, then the shorter distances started between 8:30 and 10 am. That helped a TON because it would have been completely insane with 3,000 women starting all at once!


We got off to a good start and had a bunch of miles under our seats in no time. Things were going great and at about mile 40 we passed a house that had a bunch of little puppies running around in the front yard. As soon as I saw they were Boxer puppies, I HAD to stop! My mom and sister came and petted them with me while dear Becca held our bikes with patience. :) After ooo-ing and aww-ing for a few minutes, we made ourselves get back on the road.

There was a rest stop shortly after that where we refilled our water bottles and grabbed some snacks to keep our energy up. Things were going far too well... As we got back on our bikes to head out on the next leg, this lady came speeding into the rest stop just as my mom was starting out on her bike. The lady whizzed by right in front of my mom, didn't run into her (thank goodness) but startled her and caused her to lose her balance and fall over. Her left foot was already clipped into her pedal, so of course that's the side you do down on. She fell clean over, bike and all. I felt so bad for her! And I was ready to smack that lady! But, my mom is a trooper so she jumped right up and was ready to go. Then some other ladies pointed out that she was bleeding pretty badly. Yikes! Mom hadn't even noticed, but she looked down at the inside of her right ankle and it was definitely bleeding. Apparently when she fell, her right leg was free and she must have kicked it back or something and caught her leg on the big, jaggy chain ring. Ouch!!! She had 4 good-size gouges above her ankle and a few more scrapes from the chain ring. We went over to the little first-aid truck to see if they had some gauze or something. The first-aid lady wanted one of the paramedics to take a look at it (the gouges were fairly deep and had grease from the chain in them), but when they said it would cost mom an ambulance ride back to Utah (the route crossed into Idaho), she politely declined. So we rinsed it out as best we could, wrapped it up with gauze and some tape and we were on our way. What can I say, mom is a tough cookie! :)

As we were making our way across the northern most part of the route, the rain finally decided to fall. It started out as a light sprinkle, but quickly turned into a downpour. In just a few minutes we were soaked from head to toe, water filling up our shoes. But we pedaled on, slowing our pace in case it was slippery. Of course, this part of the route is where there's a nice descent into a valley, followed by a pretty big climb out of the valley. So we couldn't get a whole lot of speed to help us up the other side, but that really only helps for the first 50 yards or so anyway. When I reached the top of the hill, I pulled off to the side to wait for Hali and mom. (Mom's leg was threatening a charlie horse, so she had to walk for a bit.) Not one minute after I stopped, Tara called my cell phone. Perfect timing! She was hanging out at the park in Wellsville catching up on work stuff. She didn't end up riding because her knee was really bothering her. So she was patiently awaiting our return. What a sweetheart!

Lunch was around mile 62 and it was delicious! A Subway turkey sandwich never tasted so good. After we filled our bellies, we headed to the first aid table to get some big band-aids for mom. The gauze and tape didn't hold up very well in the monsoon. Once mom was bandaged up we were on the road again. The last 40 miles went well. Tara drove along the route from the finish line and caught up to us when we had about 5 miles to go. She drove back and forth, getting pictures as we rode by. It was great to have our own cheerleader! She just rocks. :)

We made it back to the park in Wellsville while the party was still thumping. It was great. We took a bunch of pictures, loaded our bikes on the cars, and headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Logan. We went to the same place after Little Red last year and I think it's becoming a tradition.

After dinner, mom, Hali and I headed back to the hotel while everyone else headed home. They figured it wasn't worth trying to start driving back to Canada after a long days' ride, so we booked Saturday night at the hotel so we could sit in the hot tub and get a good nights' rest. We stopped at Smith's on our way back to pick up some epsom salts for mom to soak her leg in, along with a couple pints of Ben & Jerry's. Hey, we had to replenish the calories that we just burned!! ;) The hot tub was delightful--we'll definitely do that from now on. Sunday morning we packed up and headed our separate ways home. Another century under the seat!

Facts from my Garmin:
Distance: 103.2
Time in saddle: 08:12.20
Calories: 4854
Average speed: 12.6 mph

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Cycle Salt Lake Century

Salt Lake City, Utah
May 16, 2009
105 miles

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Considering that I haven't ridden my bike since the Zion Century in February, and my attendance at the gym has been sporadic at best, I was a little nervous about this ride. But I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. My friend, Becca, and her husband picked me up at 6 am and we headed up to the SLC Fairgrounds. We picked up our free t-shirt and goodie bags and were ready to start by 7:30 am. We hooked up with a friend of Rich's named Olly (short for Oliver) and he rode with us. There were around 1,500 people signed up for the ride, so the first few miles were pretty busy. Luckily the police had closed down a few of the roads and were controlling all of the intersections, so we just rolled right on through. It was quite a site I'm sure. We made it to the first rest stop about 18 miles into the ride pretty quickly. There were a lot of people who got flat tires along the way, but luckily we made it through unscathed. The route was pretty much flat, which was good for my weak legs. If there had been any major hills I would have been in bad shape! We hit the next rest stop, filled up our water bottles, and continued out to Antelope Island.

Along the route, Rich and Becca were motoring along and I was too tired to try and keep up. Luckily Olly was going a slightly slower pace, so I hung out with him for a while. We were chatting as we were riding along and learned that we had something in common. Long story short, his ex-in-laws were from Cardston, Alberta, near where I grew up. And, to make things even funnier, the aunt and uncle of his ex were the parents of a boy I dated for a while in high school. I was cracking up! Talk about a small world. Anyway...

I had only been to Antelope Island once before, but that was last year on the Antelope Island by Moonlight ride, so it was dark when we started anyway. So this was the first time I've been there during the day. It was quite pretty! Although I could have done without the brine smell and the bazillions of bugs. It was rather disgusting, actually. Riding toward the island on the cause way, there was a stretch of about a mile where it was like we were riding through a rainstorm of bugs. It was hard to breathe because you'd inevitably suck a bug (or five) into your mouth or up your nose. Aaack! That was miserable. But, once we got past that it was much more bearable. We rode a small loop on the island and then headed back towards Farmington. The wall of bugs had moved by the time we headed back, so that was nice.

We stopped at the lunch stop at about mile 70 and were glad that we were almost 3/4 of the way through. It was a beautiful, sunny day with hardly any wind. The last 30 miles covered the same route that we started on, so it was nice to know what was ahead and that there weren't any major hills waiting for us. We kept a pretty good pace and made it back to the car around 3:30 pm. That was by far my fastest century! It certainly helped that the route was flat and the weather was great, so we didn't have any hills or wind to slow us down. Not to mention, Rich is a work horse and pulled us along faster than I would have gone on my own. :) It was good for me though. I will definitely do this ride again in the future!

Facts from my Garmin:
Distance: 105.7
Time in saddle: 06:21.35
Calories: 5660
Average speed: 16.6 mph




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