Today my dad wanted to celebrate his 62nd birthday by riding 62 miles… and let me tell you, we rode every darn bit of the 62 miles and made it count!  I’m on the couch with grumpy legs typing this.

Before the big birthday ride today, yesterday I decided that enough was enough and it was time to get off the couch!  I ended up sick with the flu late Sunday night (hence the nausea during the race, it wasn’t bad nutrition, I was sick!!) all day Monday and Tuesday and then just took some time off the rest of the week.  By Saturday morning my legs were tired of being lazy, so I decided to do my long run.  I ran twelve miles around a 9:30 pace, which felt a little tough at times, but for the most part felt like a good pace.  After the run I put on my compression socks, ran many errands (one which included getting new, tougher bike tires for the crushed trail we were riding the next day) and finally plopped on the couch at 8p.

Today I got up around 8 and then headed to my parents at 9:30 to drive with my dad and their neighbor to the Katy trail where we were riding.  I was hoping my new, thicker tires would do ok, but was a bit worried about riding the trail on a road bike.  As we took off, my tires felt ok, but it was pretty darn bumpy and I was regretting my decision to ride in tri shorts instead of bike shorts.  Darn, I knew my rump would be complaining to me about it tonight.  At least the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and with all of the leaves changing colors it was really pretty to see while riding along the trail.

The first 30 miles felt good, around mile 40 I started to get a bit tired, and by mile 45, where we stopped for a late lunch and met my neighbor’s wife, their daughter and my mom, I felt like I was completely out of gas.  Riding on a trail is no joke and a lot tougher than the road.  Even though it was flat, the constant pedaling against the trail was really really wearing, and going 13mph was tough effort!  For a second I secretly thought of asking my mom if I could put my bike in her car and just ride home with her, but knew that wasn’t really an option.  We were going to finish this birthday ride!

I was pretty hungry by the time we got there and had a couple of beers along with my sandwich for ‘added carbs’ 🙂  After an hour, my mom left to head back home and the five of us (my neighbor’s wife and daughter road their bikes from the car to the restaurant) started to head back to the cars, which was about 18 miles away.  I was tired and so was my rump, but the food and break (and beers? ;))gave me some new-found energy so I knew we would finish the last 18 miles strong.  I think my dad felt the same way after resting and getting some fuel because he had really picked up the pace from what we were riding at the end of the first 45.

We finally made it back to the cars and when I stopped my watch, I couldn’t believe how long we had been riding.  Almost six and a half hours.  Good gawd. SIX and a half HOURS.  I’ve never ridden for that long before in my life! (ha, until IMAZ training starts…)  Oh boy, I knew my legs were going to hate me tomorrow.  I was even more proud of my dad finishing, I know he works out and is in shape, but this ride was tough!  And he was in the front leading for most of the ride – impressive!  I made him promise though that when we did 63 next year, we would skip the trail and do it on the roads!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

At mile 15