Tour De Nowhere 2009

This weekend I did a small bike ride called the Tour De Nowhere. It was a 30 mile ride that benefitted the local girls’ home. It is run by a small, but enthusiastic crowd and is always a nice ride. This year my brother was in town and agreed to do it with me which was really fun because I have not had anybody ride with me in a long time.

The course is pretty flat but every year I have done this, there is a horrible headwind for the first 10 miles that makes it seem like so much harder and longer than it is. Usually after that, it is all smiles, however this year there was a point when I was sure we only had two or three miles left until we saw the sign that said it was 13 miles to town. Ouch. We had barely gone halfway at that point!

One great thing about having this brother with me was that he used to be a track coach so he really pushed me to go faster. I tend to take these rides not very seriously and just kind of float along, but I did not do that this weekend with him riding my back tire encouraging me to push it and catch the person in front of me. I remember last year that there was a pretty big guy ahead of me that I thought for sure would tire in the first 5 miles, but I was never able to catch him. This year, it was the same guy ahead of me, but again, I just knew he would get tired and I would pass him easily. I chased him for all 30 miles of the ride but never caught up with him. What was really depressing was that he stopped at both rest stops and I STILL could not catch up with him. That was frustrating, but then again it was really good training for me to actually try to catch someone instead of just trolling along. We ended up finishing in right at two hours which I figured we would be at due to the slow first ten miles!

Sadly though, another one bit the dust as my brother told me that it was fun, thank you very much, but I will not ever be doing this again. This is the third brother I have gone through that will no longer do rides with me and now I just have one untainted brother left. I have a feeling that he will not be doing a bike ride with me unless he can do it in his cowboy boots and hat which could actually be very entertaining!

I am officially signed up to do a sprint tri in two weeks in my hometown. I gave myself lots of time to back out, but now due to my family all knowing about it and being in town that weekend, I really can't back out now. I need to kick up my running some, but other than that I am not too worried. It might be slow, but I know I can do it!