The day started at 4:45AM when I scrambled out of bed to across the room to turn off my phone alarm. I wasn’t taking any chances with sleeping in. I MADE myself get out of that King size bed. Not an easy feat when I only managed to start getting some “Z’s” at 1AM the night before. You see there was this rowdy bunch down the hall… that I was kind of part of. You could say I’m my own worst enemy!
After swinging by the hotel continental breakfast for a quick bowl of fruit loops (a weakness and the only time I eat sugared cereal is on vacations), I jumped in my car and headed to the start. There were still some clouds in the sky and I was hoping that they would go away.
There were major concerns about the weather. It was raining the night before. In fact, it was a good down pour in some instances but the Saliva Sisters, a local legend, still went on with the show. These gals were very much worth standing/sitting in the rain to watch, and they are REAL troopers. The show went on through some spots of drizzling. I found myself cracking up to their witty parodies of songs. Here are a few pictures of their various costumes…
So at 6AM I arrived at the volunteer booth and was busy most of the morning checking in volunteers. There were quite a few family members (husbands, mothers, daughters, and sons) that just showed up that morning to offer their help. I was amazed at the turn out and we definitely needed the help. It worked out pretty well.
As I was doing my thing in the volunteer booth, there was a costume contest going on. It was all kind of fun watching what these ladies came up with costumes. My friend, Sofia won a first place for her costume. She was in her homemade Wonder Woman costume. Then, there was the Big BAD wolf wondering around in his Superman outfit, and another gent running around in a Super Red Costume. Here he is with me…
I finally managed to get a late start on the ride for the 80 mile distance. The ride and the weather turned out to be BEAU-ti-FUL! The first 35 miles went wonderful and then I started getting cramping in my inside of my thighs. OUCH! At the VERY busy Newton Lunch stop I ate cantaloupe and drank quite a bit of water in hopes that it would take away some of the cramping away. It worked for awhile but then the cramping came back. I cut the planned 80 mile ride back to 73 and took a shorter route back to the start/finish in Lewiston.
The finish was SO much fun! Everyone was cheering you on and then there was wonderful cold lemonade with a HUGE strawberry in it that was served. It was SO good! Such Fun! I visited for a bit and then got to work back in the volunteer booth that was now a lost&found, etc…
About 3:30PM, they did the raffle drawing for the Halloween Bike ride that I had donated. I saw a gal jump up and down across the field as her name was announced. She lost her flip flops and her hands were waving in the air as she ran up to the stage. I signed a little note to her on the back of the painting and got a photo taken with her. It was cute how excited she was. Her friend told me that she was more excited about the painting drawing than the bike drawing. Shortly afterwards they did the bike drawing and then there was quite the exodus of people leaving the field.
About 5PM, we started breaking down and cleaning up. Sofia and Kim came in from their fist century as we were working on clean up. They both looked tired but were in good shape I thought considering it was their first.
Thus at about 9PM, I found myself at the end of the day enjoying some barbecue and LIVE music at the end of the day. YUMMY!
Love this post about this event. Really makes me want to be there (and maybe I will have to get there one of these days!)Congrats on a great job on this powerful day.
ReplyDeleteHi Shelly-
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's a REALLY fun event where the gals can just hang out, and I would recommend it to any female that likes to cycle. There's ALL levels of riders. Be watchful for entry next year. This year the event sold out in 29 days! It's getting to be popular!