El Tour de Tucson

I've been slacking, I know. El Tour was weeks ago and I have yet to finish my race report. So I sat down and attempted to finish it up. Because I know you are dying to read it...

We left the house about 8:30 to head over to Udall. On the way over I realized that I had taken my lip gloss out of my purse. This poses a problem as my Infinit (or any sports drink) tends to make my lips sticky. Which I then lick or chew on and then they get dry, and I get cranky. Once we hit Udall I ran across the street to Walgreen's to save my lips. About 10, I met up with jay, Elaine and Mea. Took pictures. We look cute.

Elaine, Mea, Jaye and I at the start

Mea and I

Rather than finding a place in the mass of people lined up, we hung out while the major group passed us and then joined the back of the group. The first 4ish miles was pretty good, took it easy and hung out with Elaine and rode behind this guy with a stereo on his bike. At least it was entertaining. Got the wash crossing which royally sucked. I think it was around 25-30 minutes of hiking and complaining about having to hike my bike. Got out to Snyder Hill and just concentrated on pedaling up that sucker. I kept reminding myself that this was a piece of cake compared to Mt. Lemmon. In all honesty, I felt like the hill on Sunrise was actually a little more challenging than Snyder was. I had a pretty fabulous ride across Sunrise/Ina and up Oracle. I made a quick aid station stop at the fire station on Ina and then got back going.

Once we turned onto the First and started that climb I could feel the burn in my thighs and I just kept telling myself to pedal and pedal some more. The turn onto Tangerine was very happy. I made it around Rancho Vistoso and Moore with few issues (1 more aid station stop). Tangerine headed west was amazing. I coasted at 25 mph. It felt awesome and was a great break from pedaling. I made a stop at the aid station by I-10 and decided to cut it short since I noticed they were holding a train. Once I turned south on the Frontage road, my race started heading downhill. Things just seemed a million times slower. By time I made it to that evil hill on Silverbell (it isn't really that bad, but at that point it was), I just wanted it to be done. I passed the aid station there and then started to realize just how little I ate over the course of the day which explained the headache and general crappy feeling. I contemplated just going home as the route passed by our house - but alas, I had no keys. I also realized, after looking at Erik's GPS later, that once you turn south on the Frontage road you are going uphill the whole way. No wonder I was slow!

As I'm going down Silverbell at a slow, pokey pace, I hear someone call 'on your left', so I scoot to the right a bit and look over to see a TANDEM PULLING A KIDS BIKE TRAILER passing me like I'm standing still. At this point, I really wanted to be done. I suffered it out and hit the next aid station for a granola bar and some watermelon to try and calm down the evil headache and get me through to the finish line. I swear, Silverbell goes forever. And who made it rolling?

Finally hit the finish line and have never been so happy to be done with something. Called Erik who had finished and then biked back to the start (all the way across town) to get the Jeep. He wanted to me to meet him at Granada & Speedway (or Main..whatever it changes too). I thought he was joking but agreed to slowly walk my way there. No way was I getting back on that bike.

I went to the medal pickup tent, but they RAN OUT of 66 miler medals. Was I that slow? There was a huge crowd of people waiting to put their address on a paper to have the medals mailed to them. Not happy. How do you misjudge by that much? I finished about 938/1205 so there were 250+ people behind me (not including those who finished before me in line) that didn't get a medal. Of course I got an email last night (12/11) that the medals were in and we could pick them up from the PBAA office. Seriously? You run out of medals and now I have to go pick it up after I put my address down to have it mailed to me?

It wasn't a bad ride, everyone in our group finished before me. I thought I was making great time until the last 15 miles. Oh well, I finished it and now I know I can certainly go 66 miles. This makes for my longest ride by distance ever. Longest by time is still Mt. Lemmon and that was 6ish hours of fun. Mostly uphill climbing fun.