Well ladies, its been a big week in my fitness progress and I just have to share :)

5K: Saturday, Marc (BF) and I ran the Chief Wapello Days 5k at his hometown summer festival. My first race ever! I was thinking: small town festival, in Iowa = a lot of casual runners and probably a lot of walkers. Was I ever wrong! These people take their running seriously! The men’s winner had a time of 16 something and the women’s winner was 21 something. A lot of people really pushed themselves. Marc and I came in toward the middle end of the pack, I was a little disappointed in my time (33:30) but was on a high after the race, I had a blast! And only puked a little afterwards, haha.

Lessons learned:
1. Never judge an old man by his looks (they all smoked me)
2. And a big cup of water mid-way though a 5k really isn’t necessary and just leads to a sloshing stomach.

RAGBRAI: Then on Tuesday I rode a day of RAGBRAI. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the ride, but it is a yearly, weeklong bicycle ride across Iowa. It draws thousands of people, a lot of Iowans, but also a lot of out-of-staters and several groups from other countries. Its known for being really challenging, really rewarding, and a massive party.

My friends Jenn and Ashleigh and I jumped in Tuesday morning at 8 AM thinking we would do the first couple legs of the ride (about 30 miles), and hoping we could do more. Jenn called it quits around the mid-twenties miles and helped Ash and I out the rest of the day by following us from town to town in her car and making sure we had plenty of drinks (water and beer), sunscreen, food, etc.

RAGBRAI consists of riding a specified route on rural highways from small town to small town, where there are beer tents, church food tents, entertainment and debauchery set up, so there are definite opportunities to rest your legs and replenish your body and spirit! With Jenn and our two teams of veteran RAGBRAI riders looking out for us we made the whole Tuesday route – 56 miles! Including the “Boone Hill” 1 mile long 18% grade monster of a climb (I’m proud to say that many of the vets got off half-way and walked their bikes, but we made it riding the whole time!).

What a rush! It was such a fun time and so rewarding to have completed 56 miles! We’re definitely doing next year, probably a couple or three days.

Lessons learned:
1. My shorts need to be quite a bit longer, I have some serious chafing going on on my thighs
2. Road bikes really are better than Hybrids for this kind of thing.

Now I have to get back to running if I'm going to do this half-marathon in September.  Thanks for reading my celebration post!
 

• Currently 5.0/5 Stars.

Tags: training, motivation, spirit, cross training, newbie

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You know Betty, it was amazing. Some of the hardcore, really professional teams would be in the bars as soon as they hit town doing body shots, downing beers, and singing karaoke and then an hour later they'd all come FLYING by me in perfectly straight rows, as serious as can be. RUI must be easier than we think ;) Posted by: elisal20 on Jul 28, 2008 at 05:26 PM

Oh, thats awesome! I have long been interested in training for a triathlon... Oh my goodness, talk about some longer shorts for bicycling! Great story, thank You. Posted by: Karen on Jul 28, 2008 at 03:54 PM

WOW! This rocks! The bicycle trip sounds amazing. The longest I have ridden is down the beach coast from Santa Monica to Manhatten Beach on my cruiser...but it really begged that I look into riding a road bike and taking it further. The beer/church stands sounds like it made for a lot of fun...hopefully no one came out with an RUI!! haha. Greta post, thanks you for sharing. Posted by: Betty on Jul 28, 2008 at 09:02 AM

It looks like you guys had an amazing amount of fun. How cool. I have often thought how great it would be to run in the midwest where there's NO HILLS! But I guess you've exploded THAT myth of mine! Posted by: bmoore on Jul 25, 2008 at 05:14 PM

I don't have many, I was pretty preoccupied with keeping my pedals turning, haha. But I put one up of my two friends and I as my profile pic - I'm in the middle. Posted by: elisal20 on Jul 24, 2008 at 05:17 PM

Right on E! I have to laugh at the old man thing. I was smoked by an 11 year old kid in the first race I ever ran. I found it strangely motivating. RAGBRAI sounds awesome! What a total blast, made all the better by doing it with good friends. I can't believe you guys rode 56 miles! Any pictures? Posted by: bmoore on Jul 24, 2008 at 03:33 PM