Loveland Community Classic Bike Tour

Wow, what a crazy week! Training certainly had me busy, as did some super-fun social events. I may not have mentioned this before, but Winston (my CTS coach) gave me a pretty relaxed schedule for almost a full month following the Lone Star 70.3. I think this was perfect for me as it allowed me to recover mentally, emotionally, and physically from a long winter of training and a bad race experience. This past week, however, was my "getting back into it" week and it's been awhile since I've put that many hours in! Just the sheer planning details of it are tiring if you're out of the routine. After last week, though, I'm back into it and it feels good!

On Saturday night we had a Team Train Right pseudo-official season kickoff party. It was fun hanging out with everyone, talking "shop" and eating good (healthy) food. That's the thing about hanging out with triathletes - you know the food will likely be healthy!

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early to drive to Loveland for the Community Classic Bike Tour I had signed up to do with my friend's mom, Cathy. Despite the fact that it was raining (will I sound less crazy if I call it "misting"?) and cold, I stubbornly drove up there to do the metric century (62.5 miles). Cathy is actually crazier than I am and didn't even waver about still wanting to do the ride in the misty rain. Honestly, if she hadn't done it, I certainly would not have either. Crazy in numbers, I suppose.

It was a good ride, though it was pretty miserable at points. As we got into the higher elevations some of that misting rain turned into sleet and snow flurries. Fortunately I had good company and the aid stations every 10 miles to look forward to. We didn't end up stopping at all of them, but by far the best one was the one with the heater! My toes were numb most of the ride, after the moisture soaked through my neoprene booties. That aid station had these awesome ham/grape jelly/cream cheese on potato roll sandwiches. Sounds weird, but it tasted fantastic. There's some sort of history behind it because the volunteers were calling it "the original cycling fuel". It was totally what I needed since I think my body was also fighting to stay warm. We could have bailed at the 30 and 37 mile ride cutoffs, but we didn't. I don't think there were too many who actually stuck to the 62.5 mile ride, but I'm glad we did. I like a challenge! It made the pancake breakfast (with whole wheat pancakes!) taste so, so good at the end.

The Crazies!