150 miles...DONE!

We are back! What a great weekend. We finished our 150 mile bike ride and feel great! We had terrific weather both days. Here is how our weekend went...

Saturday morning we started bright and early. We all (me, BJ and my brother Matt) woke up at 4:30am to some coffee and breakfast. It was so good to have carbs since I haven't eaten any in 9 days. We then packed up the cars and was on our way to MATC in Mequon. Once we got there we started to unpack and get our bikes ready. We dropped off our stuff (luggage/sleeping bags/etc.), got some more breakfast and was on our way! We started off slow, around 13 mph to warm up our legs a bit. Then after a couple of miles we picked it up to 15 mph. I don't think any of us could get in our rhythem...not a good sign when you have to ride for 75 miles. We hit the first two rest stops, took potty breaks, refilled our water bottles, and got some more food. Then we hit lunch. It was not a good idea to sit down because it was that harder to get up. By the time we got to lunch we had finished 50 miles and still we all had a hard time finding our rhythem. Poor Matt couldn't find a good groove to sit on his seat. Then after about 2 hours we finally finished! We had reached Manitowoc and got to the UW-Manitowoc campus! We were exausted! It took us 5.5 hours to complete the first 75 miles. Not bad for us not really finding a good groove. After we parked our bikes and took showers we got some dinner ( Mama Mia's!) and by 4:30pm we were out! We all took a 3.5 hour nap and then we all woke up at the same time. We decided to walk around a bit to shake out our legs and get something to drink. Then by 8:30pm we all went to sleep for the night! Saturday took a lot out of us, we were just praying Sunday would be better!

And it was. Sunday we had found our rhythem! We all woke up early again, got some breakfast, packed up our things and we were off! I don't know what it was but we were flying. We were averaging 17-18 mph. Actually I think it was everything we ate on Saturday. Every rest stop we made sure to have a half of bagel or something to just fuel us. You don't realize how much energy you are using. BJ and I had calculated it out and for 5 hours of biking at 14-15 mph we would burn 2700 calories for BJ and 2300 for me. That is not including just the calories you burn for maintanance. So as I was saying, we were flying and we finished yesterday's 75 miles in 4.5 hours! That is 1 hour faster than Saturday. We could not believe it! Especially since yesterday was actually the hard day. The second half of the ride is ALL hills. And not the nice going downhill, hills...no the "Oh my God my legs are going to fall off!" climbs.

So all in all we had a terrific weekend. I am so proud of Matt, he did so great yesterday and climbed thoughs hills like he was a pro. We are all doing it again next year, but we would like to put together a team. So if anyone is interested please let us know and we can all start training soon!

Till tomorrow...
Train Hard...Train Like A Girl!