El Tour

This crazy weekend started Friday with a carbfest dinner at Glen's house. Thanks to Glen and his family for a great dinner...

 Saturday morning we met at the flagpole at 4:30 and rode over to TCC where the start of the race was at. Seemed kinda silly to ride over there when we were already going to be riding 109 miles that day, but whatever. Once we got there, we lined our bikes up. We had two hours until the start of the race and it was F'n freezing. Thanks to Nick, Matt, Sean, Andy, Alan, Glen, Christina, and Phal for making the time fly by. We got great spots in the gold section. Wound up only being less than 5 minutes off of the top riders.  

 Around 6:55 they sang the national anthem and then counted down the seconds until the gun went off. I dont even know if there really was a gun?!?!?! I was too nervous to hear it if there was one. I kept thinking I am going to be on this damn bike for the next 6 or seven hours and I hope I dont crash. 

 The top riders were off and the rest of us just waited until the crowd dispersed. Right away I saw two riders go down. One was my teammate and the other guy fell into the fence, sucks..  

 The first eight miles went very fast. I was in a pace line with Nick and Matt and we were averaging over 20MPH. Within those first eight miles, a fire truck went by with it lights on and sure enough it was for a group of cyclists up the street. Didnt look too good. We finally got to the river crossing. No point in trying to run. Too many people, but if felt good to get off the bike for a couple of minutes.

 Ok, back on the bike. Saw two more accidents. One, this little kid was weaving in and out of pace lines and wound up hitting this guy's, in front of me, handle bars and went flying and skidding on the pavement. Pretty scary. We managed to avoid hitting the bike as it slide underneath this other ladies bike. Stupid kid...

 Coming up on 36 miles in about 1.5 hrs, we meet our teammates (Andy and Quack) for a water bottle trade off. Thanks guys. Some more riding. Ok, lots of it and then came up to the Sabino Canyon River crossing. Perfect timing because my A@@ was really starting to hurt. After pouring a pound of sand out of our shoes we were back on the bikes. 

 Still in pace line with Nick and Matt, Nick and I got stopped at the La encantada light for traffic. Freaking sucked. There went our teammate and our pace line. After a couple minutes, the cop let us go. Of course, I had trouble clipping in and Nick and the other cyclists flew by me. O, and to make it even worse FLAT TIRE. F_*@!!! I pulled over onto the sidewalk to change my tire and just my luck it was the back tire. I am trying to hurry, yet keep my cool as all these cyclists go flying by me. I got this little kid standing next to me asking me where I got my bike at? and what is this? and what is that? SHUT UP!!! I got my new tube on, but could not get my tire back on my bike for the life of me!!! There goes Phal and Christina.... Finally after throwing a tantrum, I got the damn thing back on!!! The spectators cheered me on as I got back on my bike. It was really hard to stay motivated since I lost my teammates and knew that I was in this by myself now.

Heading north on Oracle. You know, where that bitch-ass hill is at, I got another flat on my back tire. What a great spot. Nowhere to pull off, except for the ditch and on the damn hill. So now I have really given up all hopes for this damn race. My teammates are prob a good 20 miles ahead of me right now. I changed my tire and got back on my bike, which was pretty entertaining on that hill. Now WTF was wrong with my bike!!! I am peddling my hardest and only going 8 mph. Bent chain?? Prob from me throwing my tantrum. Pull off again to take a look at it. I dont know what the hell I am doing. Thank God it wasnt bent. I would have no idea how to fix it. My tire was rubbing on my frame. Fix that and back on the road again...

 Riding by myself, sucks. Trying to catch any pace line that I could, but I kept getting dropped. About an hour or so later someone rides up behind me and says, " Go Tricats". It was Petter :) :). I was sooo happy to see someone that I knew. I drafted off of Petter for the rest of the race, which was still 30+ miles. We caught a pace line with these big guys that were cranking!!! Petter kept checking to make sure that I was still with him and if it looked like I was going to get dropped he would slow down a little and wait for me, then we would get back into the pace line. 

 About 5 miles away from the finish, we caught up to Nick. I thought he had already finished. He had some bad luck too :( and the three of us helped each other out and crossed the finish line together at 6 hours and 24 min!!!

 It is amazing how much difference riding with a team makes. Thanks everyone... Glen, Alan, Andy, Christina, Phal, Andy W, Quack, Sean, Matt, Nick and Petter

Liz

 P.S. I dont know why the first word is in its own paragraph. Whatever....