On November 21st, I rode roughly 105 miles in El Tour de Tucson, a widely known cycling event in Tucson, Arizona. I had registered months in advance to get the lower entry fee, booked a hotel reservation, and even budgeted for new tires on my H3 before the long highway drive. I also did some pretty solid training with a mix of long rides, indoor trainer miles in front of the TV, and stationary bike time at the gym. I put running on the back burner and focused solely on getting ready for the big day – my first legitimate full century.
The day before the ride, my bestie aka training partner aka friend of over 20 years aka don’t know what I’d do without her, and I loaded up my H3 with our bikes and gear, made a stop at Starbucks for some road coffee, and headed out. Within 15 minutes, we were sitting on the side of the highway waiting for the DPS after being rear-ended by another vehicle. First, I’m thankful I drive a Hummer. Second, bad luck on anyone who hits a Hummer. Fast forward to we switch to bestie’s car and somehow manage to get our bikes and gear stuffed in and head down to the Old Pueblo. (That’s what they call Tucson.)
El Tour was packed with riders. Imagine 9,000 folks with bikes lining a street in downtown Tucson watching the sun come up while trying to stay warm and trying to gauge whether they have enough time for one last trip to the porta potty before the start. We were pretty far to the back, since we didn’t want to be caught in the frenzy of the hammer-heads at the start. Now I’ve heard horror stories about how bad the weather can be for El Tour at the end of November, and I don’t want to take all the credit, but I think it’s no coincidence that it was my first El Tour and the weather was spectacular. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny, blue skies, and the ‘w’ was manageable, as well. I had the race planned out in my head that bestie and I would ride, chat, keep each other company and spend 105 miles of seat time together. However, we became separated about 20 miles in and I found myself alone on the course. The prospect of 85 miles alone, with just me in my head, telling myself crazy stuff, threw me a bit. I wasn’t prepared for the turn of events, but I knew I needed to get myself right as quickly as possible or it was going to be a really rough day. So I started talking to myself (instead of listening to myself) and I made the decision I was going to have as much fun as one possibly could while being on a bike. I rode at a good pace, but not kill myself to beat the clock pace. I stopped at every rest stop and enjoyed food I would not otherwise eat, like thin mint girl scout cookies made into a sandwich with peanut butter in the middle. I had pancakes and sausage at the fire station rest stop. Hello! Firemen??? Absolutely! I complimented other rider’s jerseys and chatted with those who seemed like they wanted to chat. I had a really great day. When I checked my actual ride time, I was well under the cutoff for “Silver” level, but because of my ‘having fun’ attitude, I finished at “Bronze” level with all the rest stop merriment. And I was totally good with that. I finished. I did it.
Lesson learned? There were a couple of crazy setbacks to the weekend, but I survived. And by staying calm and not freaking out because things didn’t go as planned, it all turned out just fine.