Last week I missed doing a blog post because I was on my home from Las Vegas. Last weekend I was able to participate in the Saints To Sinners (s2s) bike relay. From the s2s website:
Saints To Sinners Bike Relay
August 1 & 2, 2014
This year's annual ride to fight ALS/Lou Gehrig's Disease will start early morning on Friday August 1st, 2014, and will end as soon as your team arrives in beautiful Lake Las Vegas on Saturday morning, August 2nd, 2014.
Teams will ride non-stop (relay style) from Salt Lake - through the night - until they arrive at Lake Las Vegas the next morning!
Take a few minutes to find out more about this year's race. Find out why we hold the Saints to Sinners Bike Relay in the "WHY" tab or read the Race Bible and Course Maps in the "Race Info" tab.
For those of you who want to compare times from prior races - take a look in the "EVERYTHING ELSE" tab. Whatever you do - make sure to register today for a blast this summer!
I don't even know if I can sum up the experience. It was incredible. It has been a couple of years since I have even participated / raced in an event. James Lawrence contacted me last year to join his team. But because I was nursing Samuel I knew that I would not be able to participate. This year he contacted me again. It was like in January and I was having a hard time fitting in just exercise and knew I wouldn't be training so I didn't commit. Then Carlee started talking to me about it. She was on the team last year but this year it wouldn't fit into her plans with the other races that she would be participating in so she wanted me to take her place. She and Nate both committed to helping with our children so that I would be able to participate in the race. Finally in May I committed to doing it. As the weather got better I was able to get out on my bike but after a ride with John Lloyd and Steve Bam, up and down Squaw Peak 4 times I knew that I was in bad shape. So I asked James for help with training. I have loved the training and have loved getting back into training. I love training with other people that have similar goals for events and races and fitness. I have loved learning from James as well. He is teaching me new things and maybe helping me re-learn things about fitness that I forgot. Carlee has ended up being pregnant and so wouldn't have been able to do the relay anyway, but also just a couple days before the race her kids got Hand Foot and Mouth disease and so she couldn't watch our kids like planned. Between a babysitter, Brooke Ashton, and Ann taking Rubie and Sarah Jarvis being in town to help out, the kids were taken care of. I was nervous and anxious going into the race because I wasn't sure how I would perform.
Of course the week leading up to the even I wanted good rest and calmness to get ready but that didn't happen. With the Jarvis' in town we always have to play and so doing things with them dominate time. Also At Task had a summer family party at Boondocks that took up a whole night. I was up wayyy tooo late on Thursday night getting ready (because when I have something I can't just get myself ready, I have to have the kids packed too, get the house ready, and have instructions for babysitters, etc.) that by the time I went to bed I set my alarm clock wrong. Scott finally came and woke me up and I had about 5 minutes to get to James'. He even called me just as we were loading up the car. It is a good thing I had everything ready the night before. I arrived at James' and Sunny's and everyone else was there and ready to go. James drove his YL van and Steve Gray drove his SUV. On our team was James, Steve, Aaron Hopkinson (John Lloyd's nephew), Tim Vidmar, Casey Rubles, Sunny, Natalie Rasmussen, Brittany Chatwin, Kristi Stocking, and me. And we had 2 drivers Alex Rudd and Chris Parkins. I definitely felt like the new person at this point and was unsure of the group dynamics. But as the race got underway I began to feel like a part of the group.
Casey was our first rider. Our team was in the last wave of teams/riders leaving at 7:45 from the Bluffdale Park. I have done a couple team relays now with running, and cycling is so much more fun because of the pace. Each stage is so much quicker as the cyclists are traveling so fast. It was exciting right from the start. Another team, Medicine Men (MM), informed us they put a team of 10 men together with the sole intent of winning the race and beating the team JustForFun (the name of our team). Ok, we thought. By stage 2 we began to see and realize their strategy. They felt that they would be able to gain a lot of ground and time on us when our women were riding. Right away in stage 2 when Kristi was riding they put 2 other men out to draft for their rider. She hung on to the back of them through most of her ride. But after a while the pace was so intense she had a hard time hanging on. That's when Steve jumped out and began to help her pace, but even he couldn't quite keep up their pace, so then James got out and kept her close on the MM wheels. Throughout the whole race the MM did that. Their rider would start their stage and a couple miles into it other men from their team would join to draft and keep the pace intense. We went back and forth the whole race gaining and losing time with them. I was rider 6. My first leg was from Gunnison to Aurora, 19.3 miles. They were a few minutes a head of me when I started out. I tried to close the gap but it was a fast pace. Tim came out after a couple miles and I drafted off of him for about 6 or so miles. He really closed the gap and then we got caught in a construction zone and I was stopped for over 3 minutes. They got a lead on us then. By the time we were in stage 10, James' first leg, I believe that we were down just over 6 minutes. MM had like 5 or 6 guys out on the course with their rider. We witnessed the most incredible riding from James. All by himself he caught up to and passed those guys and left them in his dust. I had no idea James could ride like that!
We were having a great time. Trying to out ride each other, MM and J4F, made it very exciting. By my 2nd leg we were ahead. We had projected that my 2nd leg would be around 8 or 9 that evening. But we were so ahead of schedule that it was between 6 and 7 when I started riding. I rode right into the sunset out of Cedar City up into a canyon. When I got that timing chip from Steve I took off. I think we had a 4 minutes lead and I had 19.2 miles to go and did not want to loose that lead. I took off at a pace I didn't know if I could sustain because of the climbing over that distance. For almost 14 miles I didn't know if I was on the correct route. I didn't see any other riders and no vehicles passed me. Finally a van with writing on the window about s2s drove by. At about mile 17 the MM finally caught up to me. But that time my pace had really dropped off and I was hurting and was going so slowly up the hill. I learned later that they had started out with about 6 guys to try and catch me. 3 of them dropped off because they couldn't hold the pace. At about mile 17 is when 3 of them passed me. Steve came out to help get me to the end of my leg. Just having him there for a couple miles really boosted my mood and helped me to pick up the pace some. I handed off to Sunny. About that time 4 of us got to go into St. George to a friend's house of Tim's family. In Steve's vehicle, Chris drove me, Tim, Aaron to this beautiful, spacious home where there was a shower, comfy beds, and lots of food. I was shown to the guest room with 3 queen size beds and chose a bed, covered up my face to block the light and fell right to sleep for about 30 minutes. At that time I was woken up when James called to get us back. They were ahead of schedule again and our turns to ride were coming up. But that nap totally revived me and brought me back to be able to ride with vigor again.
By this time it was very dark and there was a huge lightning storm raging all around us. And it was very hot, plus 90 degrees. Even when it was raining. Between James and the other riders they got the lead again. Right before my 3rd leg Steve and the MM guy were right with each other. They came zooming into the exchange and I was turned the wrong way. I sped up to Steve to take the chip and got right on the MM wheel. So much for starting out my leg slow and working into it. I was not about to let this guy get away and he tried to shake me. He would swerve and speed and slow down. He would turn around and look at me, either gauging how I was doing or trying to get me to take the lead but I wasn't about to. This leg was 20.7 miles. After about 5 or 6 miles, and after we got into the canyon into the rolling hills and climbing and seeing that I was going to hang onto this guy, the MM had 3 other riders come out. They formed a pace line and immediately the guy right in front of me began to slip from the line. I realized they were trying to get me off of them and far enough back that I wouldn't be able to catch up. I sped right around that guy and placed myself in front of him on the back guy's wheel. He worked into the line and tried it again and again I sped around him. Now he was done and didn't even try to keep up. Their vehicle picked him up at that time. But now I was starting to get tired. Aaron came out to help me stay on the line. But with those men they were able to pick up the pace and I just couldn't hang on. There was a few times Aaron tried to get me to pass but I just couldn't muster up that much strength or couldn't talk myself past the pain of it. We lost I think just under 2 minutes to them on that stage. I passed off to Sunny and she made up that time and gained on them. Then came Brittany and Natalie and they also kept the lead. Then for James he was able to gain on them and came through to the finish line over 2 minutes ahead of them. We came in about 2 hours sooner than expected. We beat the course record of 24:19 by almost 2 hours (which was set by J4F last year). Our finishing time was 22:29. It was a team win. Everyone worked so hard. I did better than I expected but also wish I could have done better. It would have been awesome had I been able to finish my 2nd leg without the MM ever catching up, or still even just being able to hang on to the back of their pace line when they did catch up. It would have been great to be able to not need one of the men to come out and pace for me. But even Kristi who is the strongest woman rider used the men to help pace her. Our win gives us a free entry to the event next year. I do hope to be on the team. That was such a fun event. When the MM finished they were bitter and disappointed that they did not out ride us. They accused our team of cheating. Though what they claimed was impossible and things we did not do. I think that they were really dumbfounded that our 5 women kept up so well with them. They are probably thinking that the only way a team that had 5 women could beat a team of 10 men would be by cheating. Of course that was not the case. The MM team captain, Joseph Lee, was a really great guy though. He happened to be a teacher and supervisor at the MTC the same time I was. He was a supervisor in the Referral Center. He remained so positive and friendly throughout the whole event. He seemed to be the best rider. I'm sure it had a lot to do with his positive attitude. He felt so bad that some guys on his team were accusing us of cheating. Whenever we passed he never failed to tell any of us how hard we made him work, or what a good job we did, he was humble and great about coming in behind our team. He told us that he put together that team to specifically beat J4F and J4F simply out biked them. We will see what happens next year. I'm looking forward to it.
I got a few bike rides in with Sarah while she was here. We got the kids together to play when we could. We also took a day to go up to Mandy's to spend time there.
We took like 3 or 4 days celebrating Rubie's 6th birthday. She wanted a Hello Kitty pool party. So because we have an Odd Day pool pass, we held her party on Thursday the 7th. We invited the neighborhood girls that also have pool passes, Paige, Kiana, Paisley, and Julie. Then we also invited the Jarvis' and the Tulett's. I paid Brooke Ashton to come and help since I knew with Samuel it would be impossible to keep an eye on everyone in the pool and set up the party table. We played in the pool and then I went to the park next to the pool and set up a Hello Kitty table in the pavilion. We had Hello Kitty everything and Rubie received Hello Kitty gifts. She loved it and had a blast. Friday was Rubie's birthday and my mom took a day off work to come and spend some time with us. She and the kids and I went to the mall. We did some shopping at The Children's Place. Then I took Rubie to Build-A-Bear where because it is the 40th Anniversary of Hello Kitty, she got a huge stuffed Hello Kitty which she has barely put down. Then we went to lunch at McDonald's. Mom then had to go because Ben and Cassie and their kids were coming into town. When Scott got home from work we all went to Chucky Cheese. Saturday Rubie had a soccer game and then after some household chores Scott took Rubie and Eric to 7 Peaks with Dan and Brandee and their kids. Then we met up at the park near Dan and Brandee with all Scott's sibs and families for a cookout and visiting. Sunday after Church we went up to mom and dad's to visit with Ben and Cassie. Ben is done with his time in the army. After 13 years he decided to call it quits. The army has actually been downsizing and so a lot of soldiers are getting out. He and Cassie have been looking for jobs and homes in Utah and would love to move here. We hope they find something because we want to have them here too.
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