Yay!!! I rode 104 miles on my road bike!

Yesterday started at 5AM. I picked up my good friend Mandee and headed off to Wellsville, Utah for our annual Little Red Riding Hood Bike Ride. The ride consists of 2600 girls. You can choose from 6 different routes (15, 35, 45, 62, 80 & 104) we of course chose the 104 mile ride. Last year we did 80 so it was our goal to do the longest ride they had this year. Here is a picture of Mandee and I before the ride started (we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into)...

The weather was terrible again, it was really windy, rainy, and it was freezing cold. We had a lot of fun, there were some points in the ride I almost gave up from the pain in my lower back, you may have seen my post about how my vertebrae has slipped. The pain was excruciating. At times I was on the verge of having a break down. I kept telling myself that I could do it and would finish the ride. We rode all the way to Preston, Idaho which was our half way point. To get into Preston we had to go up this huge hill, I wasn't quite sure when I saw it if I could even make it up, but here we are in Preston, we made it up the hill...

I took a picture of the sky at lunch, you can see how cold it is just by how the clouds looked...

During the last 20 miles we finally saw the sun and I was able to take my sleeves off. It was still windy, but the warmth of the sun felt great...it was such a beautiful ride. That is the one thing I love about biking, how much I enjoy the earth, I appreciate it more every time I ride. We live by such beauty.


We finally finished the ride, it took us about 6 hours and 45 minutes of just biking...that doesn't include time that it took for us to stop to rest or eat lunch. It really was a long day, but well worth the pain. Along the road near the end there were families cheering all of us on, yelling words of encouragement...I had tears in my eyes because I was so greatful that even with a bad back I was able to accomplish something so great, I never would have dreamed a couple years ago that I would be able to do something like this. Thank you all for your words of encouragement before my ride, you had faith that I could do it, and I know that helped motivate me throughout the ride. I was thrilled to finally cross the finish line, they gave us lays and had a celebration of completion with music and food. Thanks Mandee for such a great ride!