First Metric of the Season!

There is a guy I use to work with out at Meijers that I would run into every so often and he would talk about running or biking.  I some how talked him into meet me in Troy for the Strawberry Festival bike ride!  This will be my first Metric of the season and I was nervous about my stomach, but knew that if worse came to worse, I could SAG it back or take short cuts!

I met Ben and Brian down there, signed in, and headed out!  Listening to these guys talk about running full marathons and knowing that Ben has ran an Ultra (50 miles) I was worried that I'd slow them down.

One of the reasons I like biking, and even skating, is because it's my me time!  But I also enjoy riding with others, especially when they are better than me because I have to push myself.  And today was no exception!  I had never met Brian before but really enjoyed listen to them talk about running and tri's because that is something that I know I will never be able to do!  I didn't feel like I was slowing them down too much, and there were even some times when I was out ahead of them.

On the ride out, we could tell we had the head wind.  I prefer to have head wind going out, tail wind coming back, so this was perfect!  The roads were good, mostly flat with a few rolling hills.  Around 50 miles in, we went down a hill and it leveled out for as far as you could see below.  Stupid me made the mistake of saying "at least we didn't have to go up it!"  After all, I did read the sign that said trucks and buses prohibited and couldn't figure out why, that hill wasn't that bad!  To quote the ride director after we got back: "If you go down a hill and it was flat all around it... chances are you will have to climb a hill at some point!" When we entered the wooded area and came up to a road that did 90 degree turn to the right and steep, we knew we were in trouble!  What can you do but hunker down and go!  I bet I didn't even make it up 10 foot before I realized I needed to get into an easier gear.  There is that split second when you hear a noise and you know that things are not good!  I heard the chain shift, then a clank, and suddenly my feet were spinning around with no force.  The chain had popped off and the foot I got unclipped from the pedal was not the foot in the direction my bike wanted to lean!  It was inevitable that I was going down!  Luckily I wasn't hurt too bad and my bike was fine.  Brian and Ben stopped and started to come over to help, but by the time they got back down I was cussing up a storm and pulled the chain back on!  Yes, I am that type of woman who likes to be able to fix stuff herself because you never know when something like that will happen.  =)

At the top of the hill was the second rest stop and it was well welcomed to these exhausted legs!  It was at the neatest place - Burkner Nature Center.  I will be taking the girls back down there to hike and to see all the animals they have in their care!

The tail wind to help push us the last 15 miles back was wonderful!  We weren't sure if we had to check in or not, so we walked up there as they were cleaning up.  The ride director stopped and chatted with us for a little while, asked for feed back and shared stories!  He was very down to earth and we thought had done a great job with the ride!  He was even kind enough to take a picture for us!