ULCER Ride!

One thing I didn't mention when I updated last was news from the ULCER ride we did on August 8. The ULCER stands for the Utah Lake Century Epic Ride. It began at Thanksgiving Point and heading out to Provo and then circled around Utah Lake! It was 108 miles and Brandon and I are proud to say that we completed it! Our first century ride! This is like the "marathon" of the cycling world.

I know I couldn't have done it without Brandon. At mile 90 I was feeling pretty beat down. My "tank was empty" is what I told Brandon and trying to make me laugh, he said "What about a skank?" Not funny! We had been battling a strong headwind around the backside of Utah Lake that makes it feel like you are trying to ride your bike uphill even if it's flat, which it wasn't, there are a lot of rolling hills along that part of the lake! Just after we broke for lunch at the 50 mile mark, Brandon began having some muscle cramping and we had to stop here and there to stretch, but he pushed through it and found his stride. But just when he started feeling good, is when I hit my wall. It was right as we were going through Saratoga Springs, my legs were still pushing the pedals, but my mind had checked out! Brandon gave me some words of encouragement and we made it to the last rest stop at the 100 mile mark.
At that point I thought we had 11 more miles to go, but I was excited and relieved to find out that the course had been cut a little shorter to just another 8 miles to the finish line. After refueling on some gatorade and some food, we headed out to finish our "epic" ride.

And epic is what it turned out to be! We left a little after 8am and arrived back at Thanksgiving Point at 5:45pm. We logged just over 7 hours of seat time and 9 hours and 45 minutes of overall time being out on the course. Brandon burned over 7,000 calories and I burned over 5,000! Quite the day! We weren't the last ones to arrive, but most everyone else was already long gone by that time.

We definitely learned a few things! A) Shorter rest stops B) We didn't take enough food like the engergy packets etc..C) Try to stick with a group of riders D) Ride more!

Biking has been something that I wasn't sure if I would get into, but it's been a pretty enjoyable way to exercise, get outdoors, and spend time with my husband!

I've got a little Triathalon coming up next week, needless to say, I'm not worried about the bike portion of the race!