MS 72

The second weekend we were in TX was the weekend of the MS 150. Wahoo! It's finally here! My Dad and I have been training like crazy to out do each other and we were ready. The 150 miles is broken up over 2 days. The first day you ride about 75-80 miles, then the 2nd day you ride the other 60 or 70 miles (they aren't very exact with the 150 miles). But on day 1 they give you an optional century loop to follow that will give you 100 miles for day 1, so you end up riding about 170ish miles for the weekend. Dad and I of course were going to do that option and were psyched! This year though they changed the route and mucked the whole thing up! Dad and I were not happy about it! It usually is called Bike to the Beach and you ride one way down to the beach at Corpus Christi. It's the same route we've been doing for 6 years and now they change it on us to an out and back Ride to the River. So lame! The half way point is like an hour from my parents house. I mean it was nice that we didn't have to spend the money on a hotel, but still, that's the fun of it. So anyway, back to this years ride. All summer long Texas has been praying for rain. They had hardly gotten any rain for the past 4 months, but the week before the ride they started predicting torrential rain and thunderstorms for this weekend! Nooooooo!!!!!! So we get up Saturday morning around 5 am to head to the Alamo Dome to the start of the ride. And since Grayson doesn't wake up until 7ish I had to pump a bottle of breast milk for him, plus I had to shrink the girls a bit! Haha!! On a side note-doing these kinds of endurance events as a nursing mom adds a whole other element to your training. I was going to be away from Grayson for about 8 hours both days, so I worked really hard to make sure I had at least 8 bags (4 for each day) of breast milk pumped before we even got there. My body produces only as much as Grayson eats, so trying to get an additional pumped "feeding" into my day was alot of work! It was all frozen so I put them all in a cooler with ice packs in it and they all stayed frozen all the way down to TX! I was so happy because then I could keep all that milk for the ride weekend! Wahoo!!! I am such a mom! 6 years ago when we started doing this ride, I never imagined I would be pumping my boobs in the back seat of the car on the way to the ride! Too funny! So anyway, on the way it starts sprinkling and the whole time we are getting ready in the parking lot it is sprinkling and cold-mind you the temperature has been running at 90 degrees or so and this day it was like 60 degrees and wet. Brrrrr!!!!! We were hoping to beat the storms, but we ended up riding the entire 72 miles in the rain. It was miserable! And to top it all off because of all the rain the loop for the century part was flooded! So they had to cancel the century loop, so we only got to ride 72 miles the first day. What a disappointment! And because of the rain our average was only 15 miles per hour. Terrible! On our training rides we were both averaging around 16.5-17 miles/hour. So we changed our clothes and hopped in our "chase vehicles" that mom and aunt Jeanie were nice enough to drive up and went for a post ride dinner at B-dubs (AKA-Buffalo Wild Wings). Yum! There's nothing like wings, beer and football after a hard ride. So we get up the next morning again around 5 am, I pump in the back seat again and it is absolutely poring rain and thundering and lightning. All the roads are starting to flood at this point. At one point the water was so high over the highway that we had to stop and turn off onto the access road because we couldn't have made it through the water. Then half way there I get a text message from the ride organizers and Day 2 of the ride has been canceled! NOOOOOOOO!!!! So needles to say, my dad and I trained for 3 months for a 72 mile bike ride. I did a training ride longer than that! Harrrumph!

Here we are! Ready to ride before the sun's even up!

Putting on our rider numbers.

Got my rain coat on now! Brrrr, it was cold!

Race day fuel!

Mom and her umbrella.

Mom made friends with another group who had an awning. Don't want the "Pitt crew" getting wet or anything!

Here we are, all ready to ride. That's the Alamo Dome behind us.

In the chute getting ready to head out.