The Mann's-Party of Five: Soldier Ride

Last weekend my dad and I rode in the Soldier Ride which is a bike ride to support the Wounded Warrior Project. My mom works for Geico and Geico is the main sponsor for the ride and she told me I should look into it. I thought it would be a great short term goal to get me back onto my bike. They had 2 routes, a 25 mile and a 55 mile and of course we chose the 55 mile route-couldn't take the easy way out! After my dad, Tim and I had committed to doing the ride I remembered it was on the same day as Brady's last soccer game. I wasn't going to do the ride but my wonderful hubby said don't worry about the game, he'd take him and dad and I should do the ride. So we did and had a great time. There were a few glitches in the ride though. First, there was the wind. Fortunately the route was a loop, and on the way out the wind was in our face. I hate riding into the wind! It made it super tough! But then we turned around and the wind was at our backs and we flew back in. And secondly the route was poorly marked and we ended up missing 2 turns and went about 10 miles out of our way. And one of the wrong turns put us right back into the wind. Grrrr!!! But we finished and made fairly good time. We finished in 3 hours 45 minutes and averaged 16 miles per hour. Pretty proud of myself for it being my first post baby ride at 8 weeks post partum. I immediately came home and started planning out my triathlon season and cycling season. I've got the bug! Wahhoooo!!!!