Neighborhood Labor day breakfast, and Century bike ride.

 Just so everyone knows, I have the coolest neighborhood ever. My neighbors hosted a big Labor day breakfast this week. They cooked up a bunch of hash-browns and pancakes, and everyone else brought a dish to share. Their tables and chairs kind of fell through at the last minute, so we were able to help a bit with that, bringing our tables, and some of the other families chipped in tables and chairs too. 

 

It was such a nice time with everyone talking together, and the kids playing. Just idyllic.

 Brenda and I were planning on doing the Wonder Woman century race this year (a note on this --it is really a non-competitive ride, but the course is marked with aid stations, you have race numbers, and there is a start and finish --I time myself for sure! So to help people to understand what it is like, I often call these races). Anyway, about a week and a half out, they put out a 5.00 coupon on registration and they sold out right away. Suddenly we were looking at racing in about a week on the Goldilocks course.

 Brenda was going for a slightly shorter distance, so last weekend she and I started out together, but she turned around at the 30 mile mark (to get in a 60 mile training ride) and I kept going on my own. 

 I saw some beautiful lonely country out west, until I hit the 40 mile mark on my Garmin and turned around towards home. I was so tired and hot at mile 70, I laid down for a few minutes on a shady sidewalk in Spanish Fork before finishing up the last 10 miles. I was about out of water. That makes things worse.

 But yesterday morning I was raring to go. The air quality had worried me all week. We have had a number of fires in the area, and it smelled like smoke everywhere. So hazy, and they were recommending not to exert yourself outside. It was a personal miracle for me when my little selfish prayers were answered and we got rain the day before the race, clearing out the air in the whole valley. Not that I haven't been praying like crazy for the hurricane victims, and those tormented with fires out west, not to mention the Mexican earthquake people! So many people suffering I just felt guilty to ask for my little thing. I know Heavenly Father doesn't mind though. He still loves me and my little concerns.

 This is a well set up race. I feel like they made a lot of progress from their first time setting it up in Provo last year. A lot smoother. I was bugged at the misplaced signs near the end of the course saying "2 more miles" and "1 more mile" --those signs were 1 .75 miles apart, and the last mile was a mile and a half long! When you are running on the fumes of willpower, it is hard to be tricked like that at the end of 100 miles plus!

But I did finish. Yay! The weather was just perfect. Overcast most of the time, not too hot, sprinkles on me once or twice, but just enough to be refreshing. I couldn't have custom ordered better weather.

My sweet husband was such a support this year. He replaced the clips on my shoes for me, reset my bike computer (I thought it was dead and was going to toss it!), and went over my tires with a fine tooth comb to pull out latent spines so I didn't get a flat on the ride. He loaded my bike up for me the night before, and unloaded it at the end of the ride. He even drove the truck home and let me ride home with my dad. Sometimes we forget that with every achievement, there is probably somebody else sacrificing to help make it happen. I am grateful.

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