Park to Park Pedal

October 13 was the 2nd annual Park to Park Pedal Extreme.  It is a 100 mile bike ride in Southern Nevada (goes right through my hometown at mile 3) and it goes through 4 state Park.  It is a pretty hard one because there are a lot of hills/mountain to climb.  The start and finish is in Kershaw Ryan State Park which is just a few miles from my parents house.  They also have a 40 mile Double Helix which takes us through 2 of the State Parks.  My Dad did it last year and this year 6 of my family members participated.  My Dad, sister Vera and cousin Loren each completed the 100 mile ride and my mom, sister Marie and I did the 40 mile ride.  It was a lot of fun and I am so glad that I was able to do it.

Here are the 6 of us before the ride started.  

They had the riders go out in waves because the 1st mile is down a big hill.  So here we all are lined up at the start line ready to go. 

At mile 3 we actually rode by my parents house so the kids all went outside to cheer us on as we went past. 

Deker and Bauer with their "Go Mom Go" Flags that I made back in June for my first bike ride.

Keagan.

My Mom and I going past the house.

About mile 10.

My boys and one of my sisters twins (the other is behind Bauer) going to our rest stop to cheer us on there.

Mile 20 coming into our rest stop at Cathedral George State Park.

My cute family at the rest stop.

My mom, me and sister Marie after we finished our 40 mile ride.  The mile long hill I told you about at the beginning of our ride, yea we had to climb up it for our last mile.  It was really hard, especially since I had pulled a muscle in my leg within the first 10 miles of my ride and it hurt to climb hills, but I did it!

My Dad coming into the finish.  There is this last little hill to the finish line (you can see it better in the next picture) and all the kids would wait down there and run up with the people they knew.  Here is my Dad with his grandkids running along with him.

 My sister Vera with her nieces and nephews running long.  You can see the hill better here!

The victorious 100 milers My dad, sister Vera and cousin Loren. 

Vera was stretching after her ride and Bauer decided he wanted to stretch with her. 

 

Now, just something for me that I wanted to remember because this is my "journal" as well.  You can read if you want, but you don't have to.  I originally wasn't going to participate because I should have been over half way through my pregnancy.  When I had the miscarriage Andrew kept trying to get me to sign up for it because he knew I needed something else to focus on.  I kept telling him no.  Then when my parents and sister were in town in August for my brothers graduation, we went on the bike ride with Kristen Armstrong for her celebration (you can read about it here.)  That was the first time since the Goldilocks Bike Ride I did in July, that I had gotten on my bike and it reminded me how much I enjoyed riding my bike.  So after that I decided I would do it, but after taking a month off from riding I definitely had to retrain for it.  There were some emotionally challenging times while training.  There was one training ride in particular about 2 weeks before the ride Andrew and I had set out to ride 25-30 miles, but something happened and I emotionally broke down on a particularly hard part of the ride and it hit me that the only reason I was out there was because I wasn't pregnant anymore and I really wanted to be.  I cried while riding for a few miles while Andrew listened to me vent and be sad.  After that happened, we decided to just ride 20 miles and I almost decided not to do the Park to Park Pedal at all.  But I also knew that if I didn't to the Park to Park Pedal I would really regret it.  

Even though it was hard (a little physically, but mostly emotionally), I am so happy that I didn't give up and that I persevered and that I finished it.  I wasn't very fast, but that is OK with me.  I did it and I am proud of myself for accomplishing it.  Now, I really want to get a road bike so that I don't have to use my mountain bike for these rides.  If only I could grow a money tree in my backyard that would produce the almost $1000 I would need to buy one of the lowest entry road bikes.