Little Red Riding Hood

on June 2nd Bethy and I rode in the Little Red Riding Hood bike race up in Lewiston, UT.  This was such an awesome and well put together race, that was just for ladies.  You could choose which mileage you wanted to bike when you registered, you could choose from 100, 80, 50, 36, or 18 miles.  We chose the 50, we wanted to be ambitious, but not crazy haha maybe we could work up to the 80 or the 100 in the future but we felt like 50 would be good for us this year.  This race sold out in 45 minutes!! Bethy was on top of registration and made sure to get on the site right when they opened it up back in like January.  So it was definitely a well attended event.  We woke up early the morning of the race and drove up to Lewiston.

                        We, of course, made sure to wear our little red riding hoods on the drive up!

This is the view that greeted us when we arrived at the race .... we figured we have ran a race in the rain we could definitely bike a race in the rain, and it would probably be refreshing right ...?

All the anxious riders excited to get out on the trail!  Each mileage had a twenty minute span for their start time, they would send out groups of riders about every five minutes within your start time.  Our start time, for the 50 miler, was 9:20-9:40.  We got to the starting line right as the last group from our section was gearing up to go!  So we cut it close, but we made it just in time!

This lady had a cute little dog in her basket, he reminded me Toto, mainly because he was black and was in a basket.  I wonder which mileage she chose to ride ...

The weather turned out to be just wonderful!  It was warm and sunny with a light, cool breeze and the blue sky was absolutely gorgeous.  It was so hard for me not to jump of my bike every five seconds to take pictures of the scenery.  All the scenery pictures are from Bethy, she was speedy fast and could afford to stop every once in a while to take a photo.  I, on the other hand, had to keep going non stop just to make sure I wasn't the very last person to cross the finish line.

They had rest stops about every 10-15 miles.  They were nice rest stops to!  They had a first aid station, a bike shop station, a sunscreen/ bug repellent/ baby wipe/ tampon station, and so so so many different snacks to choose from to keep you well feed as well as lots of different powders you could add to your water to make sure you got all the hydration you needed.

We, being the animal obsessed people that we are, found a couple of dogs and couldn't resist going over to pet them.  This big guy was adorable.  Look at that big smile on his face, and he was so fluffy and soft!  I just loved him so much.

Then we gave each other back rubs to relieve all the tension that was beginning to build in our arms, shoulders and upper back, it felt so nice!

bahahahahahahaha!! Bethy's face makes me laugh so hard every time I see this picture.

Then it was back to the good old trail. This is what my view was for the majority of the ride, not too shabby eh?

Our second rest stop was at the 25 miles mark, we had made it half way!  It totally didn't feel like I had just ridden 25 miles, I was surprised by how well my body was taking it because I had not been on a bike since the marathon race which was back in April ...

Here we are showing that we had made it 25 miles, and yes it is reversed.  I should have known the camera would flip it ... and my hand is disgustingly dirty... oh well ...

More gorgeous scenery

Around the 35 mile mark, we stopped to have lunch.  I was pretty excited to get a longer break, but wasn't super exhausted yet. 

Lunch as delicious, Subway sandwiches, cupcakes, and diet cokes.  Such a wonderful meal after biking 35 miles.

The theme of the race this year was Peace, Love, Ride, so it was centered around the 60s/70s, hippies, and disco.  All the volunteers wore tye dye shirts and they played disco music at all the rest stops and at lunch.  Even the cup cakes were centered around the theme and were decorated in, bright, flower power, colors.

These adorable and mischievous little boys were wandering around all the tables with signs that read, "will work for kisses." haha they would fetch you more diet coke or a bag of chips and would ask for a kiss in return.  They were seriously so cute.  We had to take them up on their offer so we had them get us some refills on our diet cokes and repaid them with great, big kisses.  Later, when we were lathering up in sunscreen we heard them comparing numbers, one had reached 100 and one was at 99.  The 99 boy walked right up to us and asked if we would just give him a kiss haha we decided to give him a sandwich kiss which put him at 101.  He was so excited to go tell his friend he now had a higher tally number haha silly little boys.  But over 100 kisses?  That's a lot of kisses to get from sweaty biker chicks ha.

Then it was back on the road to finish those last 15 miles.  It took my legs a couple of miles to get back in the groove, they were kind of stiff after sitting so long at lunch.  This last leg was the only leg that had hills, and it had four back to back to back.  They weren't huge hills by any means, but they weren't flat so that made it a little more difficult.  I am glad lunch wasn't at half way or else I might of had a break down, knowing that I was passed the halfway point made it easier for me.  After all the hills we made a turn and this is what our view was for the last nine miles of the race, dark threatening clouds.  I actually would have loved it if it had started to pour rain down on us, it would have felt awesome!  But, it didn't.

When we finally crossed the finish line we were awarded with these cute bracelets as our medals with the theme, Peace, Love, Ride and the date engraved on the peace  sign.

I checked my Cateye Commuter right as we rolled across the finish line, it was at 50.04!  Sometimes you are just short a mile or two on these types of races, but we were right on!  How awesome!

It took us 4.5 hours to complete.  I know that is not speedy by any means, but I have never biked for that long or even close to that long ever in my life haha. (My timer stops when the wheels of my bike stop and starts again when I get moving, so this time doesn't include any of the rest stops or lunch.  It is purely time spent riding.)

Races always have a big party at the end which is always fun to browse, and as a rider we got quite a few things, all food items, for free.  We got lime Ricky's, ice cream Sundas, chips and salsa and all sorts of other goodies to replace all those calories we had just burned.  They also had a bunch of things centered around their peace, love ride theme which were fun to walk around and look at.

One of my favorite things about signing up for races is getting our little swag bag and seeing what the T- shirt design is, there is always a t-shirt.  For this race we got a purple tote bag, our shirt, a bandanna, as well as a tye dye bracelet (I posted a picture of that earlier)  Pretty fun stuff!

I had a pretty cool number haha.  I also thought it was awesome that they had our names on our bibs, I am impressed by the littlest details...

This race was soooo much fun.  Probably the funnest race I have done to date.  It was just so well planned out and all the riders were so nice and considerate, everyone was just happy to be there.  The volunteers were all fabulous and made all the rest stops and everything great.  The course itself was nice and flat (haha) and so gorgeous.  It was great to get out in nature and complete such a rewarding activity!   I look forward to next year!