Tour de Cure

The Tour de Cure was the past Saturday and it went pretty well.  We went down to Birmingham on Friday afternoon about 2:00pm.  We stayed in a Hampton Inn in Inverness that was near the race.  Pretty nice hotel, clean, quiet.  We had promised the kids we would eat at the Cheesecake Factory so we dropped my bike off at the hotel and headed out.  Surprising there was no wait when we got there even though it was 6:30 on a Friday night.  I had not been to a Cheesecake Factory in a long time.  Last year at this time I could have gone crazy.  All the food looked so good!  But this is the "new" me, so I got the healthiest looking pasta dish I could find.  It still wasn’t that healthy, but it could have been worse...a lot worse. I did have to get a piece of cheesecake, but I only eat half of it :-)

Saturday morning I got up at 5:00 and started getting ready.  The hotel had a very nice complimentary breakfast, eggs, biscuits and gravy, oatmeal, waffles, etc... I had some fruit, yogurt, and a hardboiled egg.  We headed over to the race about 6:45am.  When we got there I got checked in and rode around a little to warm up.  By about 7:00 there were a hundred riders there.  Since this was my first race, I wasn't really sure what to do.  I just kind of followed everyone and got lined up toward the back of the pack.  I could barely hear the announcer from where I was.  They sang the National Anthem and had a prayer and then they were giving out instructions.  I should have gotten a little closer so I could hear, because apparently they were the instructions for the 100 mile ride!!  I was apparently in the wrong group.  I was going to do the 25K ride.  I did not know they were starting the different groups at different times.

I heard someone counting down and then heard GO! and we were off.  It was kind of exciting.  This huge pack of people all trying to fit through this rather small start gate.  We finally made it out on the road and I was feeling pretty good.  After a few minutes, there was one group that took off ahead, but I was doing a fairly good job keeping up with the middle of the pack.  We were averaging about 23 miles/hour.  Since the course was an out and back, when I got to 5 miles I thought it was a little strange that I hadn't seen anyone from the lead group coming back yet.  At about 7 miles I could not keep up the pace anymore and started to drop back.  When I finally made it to the 10 mile point there were only about 10 people behind me.

There was a rest area at 10 miles and a lot of people were stopped getting water, GU, and bananas.  I noticed a big sign that said "25K Turn Around".  I also noticed that everyone seemed to be continuing on.  That is when I realized that I had left with the wrong group.  I asked one of the volunteers if this was indeed the 25K tour around and if the course was the same on the way back.  They said yes.  So, realizing that I was in the 100 mile group, and there was no way I would make 100 miles, I turned around...by myself.

On they was back, I passed the 50K group and then finally the 25K group.  I was a little embarrassed, but I decided to do the best I could.  When I got back, I did not go through the finish line.  I pulled off just before where Stephanie and the girls were sitting.  Stephanie was smiling, because of course, she realized what had happened too.  We laughed about it and my kids got a big kick at of me coming in "first".  When a couple more people finally came back, I went up to the finish line told them what happened and checked in.

All in all, I was a great experience and I had a great time.  I can't wait until next year.  And next year I will make sure I start in the right group!