Staying Out of Trouble

Sometime in the early summer, I saw an opportunity to do another crazy that I couldn't pass up.  Better yet, I decided kiddo would be able to do it with me as well. 

The Tour De Rocklin was a 20 mile bike ride throughout a little foothills town near us.  We trained  for it, getting all the way up to 18 miles, had my first crash on a training ride, gave her a tour of CSUS, saw tons of wildlife, burned a bajillion calories, lots of good talks and overall a great experience. 

The most notable training time was after a 14 miler, I really was thinking death.  I could no longer feel my butt, my legs felt like electrified wood, everything hurt like a mother, and the fatigue truly had me wondering and wishing if the 11 year old would be able to drive us home.  Putting the bikes on the back of the car rack took almost 45 minutes because of the severe fatigue, exhaustion, shakiness....it was horrible. 
It was at this moment, I knew a 20 miler was out of the question.  I couldn't do it.  I couldn't expect an 11 year old to do it if I couldn't.  After struggling putting the bikes back on the rack, I lay down in the parking lot, right there, likely on a bunch of bugs, glass and poop.  I didn't care.  I asked kiddo one question " So you still think we can do 20?"  Already knowing the answer was a surefire 'hell no'.
Without a millisecond of hesitation the response was 'oh sure we can.'
Really?  Huh. Okay, so I guess were still on.  My heart soared as my mind thought 'oh shit'. 
We carried on. 

The Tour itself was....interesting. 
First and foremost what sticks out in my mind was the damn hills! Now here's where I questions both my sanity and my intelligence like never before.  Did you notice I mentioned the town of Rocklin was in the foothills area?  Yeah, that part slid right past me too.  We didn't train for hills much, we kept to the bike trail and did a few 'bumps' here and there.  So the hills killed us.  Luckily this wasn't a race, so we had all the time in the world.  We carried on. 
The second most notable was the road construction and the not so cool areas of fast traffic, no bike lane and no sidewalk.  It was nerve racking to say the least. 

Another notable was the crash of kiddo.  This was shortly after she kept telling me 'Eh, I'm just not feeling it today'  which I knew was translation for 'I don't want to do this.' So at that point, I decided to just see how it went.  If we quit at mile 10, so be it. 
The crash was slight, no injuries, but it was likely the first time I'd seen her crash and it was horrifying to me to see her flying off the road, off her bike. I think I was more freaked out than she was.  Oy. 
We carried on. 

About more than the half way mark was a stopping area, with sandwiched, goodies, a café, and most importantly, a bathroom! We stayed to eat, drink, rest and stretch and then carried on.  The second 'half' was nearly all downhill, we were rested, refreshed and ready to finish. It was such a proud moment for us both. Doing something neither one of us had ever done before. We simply wanted to accomplish it, to finish it...  
And that we did.