Tour de Fun Recap

Saturday the Teen Action and Support Center hosted the 5th Annual Tour de Fun event from Lewis and Clark in Rogers.  The Tour de Fun offered several different bike ride distances and even a 5k run.  I signed up for the 50 mile ride which is an out and back route of 25 miles.  This was going to be my 2nd time to complete the 50 mile distance!

The ride had a very early start time of 6:45 AM which really sucks when it comes time to get out of bed.  However, towards the end of the ride as the heat was really starting to build I was definitely thankful for the early start! I got to Lewis and Clark and headed to pick up my registration.  They had a ton of volunteers working the registration table so it went super fast.  It was also great that the store was open so that we could go inside and use real restrooms before the start of the ride.  I ran into AJ and we both took time to cover ourselves in lots of sunscreen.  We were curious about our other friends, Rhonda and Maja, since it was getting close to the start time.

At 6:40 Maja and Rhonda showed up...they had ridden to the start and were running a little late obviously.  We skipped a pre-race picture since they were rushing to store gear and things.  As we rode to the official start line, the rest of the bikers were riding out.  We didn't communicate very well and at the last minute Maja unclipped and stopped.  I barely got unclipped but my friend Kier wasn't as lucky.  He wasn't expecting the stop and ended up toppling over which is more embarrassing than painful.  I felt awful since he fell because he was avoiding hitting me.  After the last biker passed us, the group pulled out to join in. Sadly we were on a small incline and I couldn't get clipped in and started for the life of me.  I had to walk my bike to the end of the store driveway and then sprint to catch up to the rest of the group.  Thankfully, the start was the only eventful part of our day!

Me, Maja, and AJ at the rest stop.

The route follows some of the roads that we ride on for our Tuesday night group rides so I was familiar with the terrain.  I had only done 2 rides of 30-35 miles this year and was a little worried about the distance.  I was mostly worried about the final 5 miles of the route since it included a couple of good sized hills.  I wasn't sure how my fatigued legs would handle those climbs! 

The organizers had two rest stops (one halfway and one at the turnaround.)  This equated to three total stops since we hit the halfway stop going both directions.  It was good to fill up our water bottles and have a few snacks but it also felt great to get off the bike for a minute or two and walk around.  The middle 10 miles were on one of our most common routes and we got pumped up and really worked it for that section.  The funny part about this section is that it always seems to be uphill and always seems to be into the wind no matter which direction you are headed. 

At mile 40, 80% done and starting to get a little hot and hungry.

I was really surprised by how fast the ride flew by even with our stops.  I expected us to slow down a lot more on the second half but we were pretty evenly spaced between the two halves.  I think our time at the turn around was 1:32 and our total time was 3:05:15 and change.  Not bad for my second 50 miler!!!