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| She's hardcore... |
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| ... and I'm hardcore. You can't tell, but I'm stepping on a wolf. ;) |
Little Red is a woman only bike ride through Cache Valley in Northern Utah and raises money for cancer research. I was actually interviewed by a local paper to be a featured rider because I'm a cancer survivor. However, I couldn't make their photo shoot (middle of the day in SLC... does anyone have jobs?), so they didn't run my story. If you go HERE, you can read the gist of the article.
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| Andi, Casey, Katy and I in slurpee heaven! |
This ride was a prep ride for my upcoming Olympic triathlon. It was the longest I had ridden to date. Katy and I drove up to Northern Utah the night before and met up with some of her friends Casey and Andi. Casey is a cute mom who tells it like it is. I loved her taboo-free spirit. Andi works for the Foreign Service and has lived in crazy places like Afghanistan... she's basically a G-man (or G-woman?). My new friends somehow talked me into getting a slurpee that night. BAD IDEA! I hadn't had a slurpee in years... it's basically a few liters of liquid sugar. Liz the insomniac was totally wired and probably got 3 hours of sleep! We woke up early and headed to the starting line.
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| The beginning... |
There were 3000 participants in this ride!
You can choose from a variety of distances in this race - 15 to 100 miles. The four of us chose the 58 mi course. I kind of wish I would have chosen the 80 mi, but it was more important to ride with friends.
The scenery was so gorgeous! The weather was perfect! The fact that it was non-competitive was great! I am totally hooked on road biking!
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| World's best photo! Katy took this over her head, while clipped in! |
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| Can you see me? This was the ride... blue skies and green fields. |
Katy was fun to ride with because she is an ornithologist. The whole day she was spotting cool birds. The ride was mostly beautiful farmland. We passed a few ponds and reservoirs. The land was very green and quiet. I totally get why people are attractive to the rural life. My least favorite stretch was a dairy farm. It simply reeked!
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| Liz, Shelly, Lindsay, Paige, Amy... The Tingeys! Check out the mom/daughter matching jerseys! |
Although there were a few hills here and there, there was one major climb worth mentioning. It was a few miles long, and I am proud to say that I powered through it and passed a lot of struggling cyclist. I am admittedly a wimp going down. I rode my break on the the steepest descent because Shelly told me about the major crash last year on that stretch of rode. I had a lot of sister friends doing this ride. Besides my posse, I met Julia Ashworth, my cycling guru, at the finish line. She did the 80 mi. I also ran into my Aunt and cousins during our lunch break. They were doing the full century ride, which I am totally doing next year... watch out Mr. B.B. Wolf!
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| Casey, Katy, Liz & Andi |
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| Liz, The Big Bad Wolf, Julia, & Katy |
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