The Little Red Riding Hood Ride has always been one of my very favorite century rides. All women, plenty of support, and the scenery is absolutely beautiful. The first year I rode it was for my "bachelorette party about a week before getting married". My friends Kristina, Susan and Aislinn turned into a complete party and we had the best time riding together. Since then I've ridden several other times and was excited when we got in this year. Training has been a little rough thanks to a lot of rainy weather, but I was able to get in a few 60 mile rides in preparation so that made me feel much more comfortable going into it. Friday afternoon I met up with my cousin Suzi, as well as Jami and her bike gang to get the party started. We did a little shopping at the expo and I bought a "Bike Happy" necklace to remind me that this was meant to be fun. We had a fantastic "date night" at Firehouse Pizza and made it back to our hotel to make final preparations.
Our hotel room was the subject of a lot of laughs and plenty of jokes. We didn't book early enough and were desperate to find any type of room. I found a few rooms last minute and knew that what I had booked at the Econo Lodge wouldn't be high end, but I had no idea they were "smoking rooms". Who knew you could even book a smoking room anymore. I found a candle in my travel bag, but neither that nor the fan did much to get rid of the smell. On the bright side though....we did have a kitchenette!
Saturday morning we got to the park early and had plenty of time to get everything ready and have some breakfast. The ride started off fantastic. We had a group of 8 girls and were riding a great pace. Unfortunately we made a wrong turn somewhere around the 20 mile mark and got pretty off course. There ended up being about 25-30 other riders in the same mess, all trying to figure out a map and how to get back to the course. By the time we joined back up with the rest of the rides we had added about 12 miles to the route which made it a little tough mentally. But, we were all determined to have a good ride so we just put or heads down and kept riding. By the time we left the rest stop at the 70 mile mark our group had split and Jami, Adrienne and I were determined to ride to the end together. I mostly ride alone so it was so great to ride with friends and have a little cheerleading for the tough parts. We all made it up the looooong hill into Preston and from that point on, were just riding for home. We took a few little detours (on purpose this time) and finished the ride at 105 miles, 15.8 mph average. I just felt lucky to feel so good and have had so much fun.
Remember how I said it was pretty.
So happy to be back in Utah
Meanwhile, back at home, Tim and the kids were busy with the big boys. Brycen came down and spent a ton of time helping Tim with our rental house. The babies were so excited to have him here and did their best to monopolize his time.
He said that he was working hard.....
After putting Taylor to work for the morning, they all took a break to hike in Payson Canyon.
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