MS150 Bike Ride - Houston to Austin 2 Days, 150 Miles

This past weekend my bestest, Deborah and I, my brother in law Britton, his buddy Blake and our friends Bryan/Brian all participated in the BP MS150 Bike Ride. It was such an accomplishment to roll through that finish line! It was so hard at times and my knees tried to disown me many times :)  But we all finished!

The night before we bunked down at my Aunt and Uncles house in the country and they drove us to the start in Waller. We were all anxious and excited and I don't know about the others because they seemed calm, cool and collected. But I was pretty scared. I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know if I'd be able to finish.

I had been doing spin classes and riding whenever I could. I also did three organized rides but all of that didn't seem enough at that moment. We started out and the roads were smooth, the weather was perfect and there was a nice breeze. Couldn't be more perfect. We rode 80 miles the first day to Lagrange (and three miles further down to the Camp Walmart) where our team had set up camp. Britton and Blake were way ahead of Deb and I and had warned us that our campsite was a good hike off of the halfway mark. Those three miles couldn't have felt any longer. We were so ready to get off those bikes by then. Luckily the boys had already located our luggage for us and aired up our air mattress.

We stowed our bikes and then got in line for the prize of the day :) PAPPASITOS had been catered in and never smelled so good. Talk about motivation to finish day 1!  After dinner we went to stand in line at the shower truck. I had really low expectations for these showers and kind of had them pictured like a shower port-o-potty. so when we walked up we found two surpises: ONE the ladies line was considerably shorter than the mens. (when does that EVER happen??) and TWO the showers were just like college dorm showers. With the little changing area and then the shower. And the showers were GLORIOUS! Oh seriously I have never loved a shower more. It was so hard to turn that water off and leave. I could have stayed in there for days. But that shower made me feel like a new woman. We made our way back to the tent to get rested up for day 2. In bed by 9pm :) I can't remember the last time I did that.

I woke up feeling like it had to be time to get up and realized it was only midnight. SWEET!!! Oh and this was about the time that Deb sat up in bed and did some sleep talking and then almost double bounced me off the air mattress when she slammed back down on the bed. Lol. It was so funny. Fell back asleep and woke up again to the sound of people rustling around getting packed up and changed. I looked for my phone to discover it was 4:51am. YUCK! Time to get up. We were supposed to roll out at 7 am. Bags packed. The rain was pouring down so hard all night and into the morning and we dreaded that the day would get canceled and we wouldn't have a chance to finish the ride. But literally at 6:10am the rain completely stopped and the ride continued on as scheduled.

It was chilly and really slick on the roads and I was a bit hesitant. My biggest fear was to wreck on the road. We saw several wipe outs during the ride and none of them looked fun. Anyway, day two went fine. It was really hilly at times. This one hill was so high that if you looked at it from a distance it curved off to the left and there were trees in front of it and then you could see the peak of the hill OVER THE TOPS OF THE TREES! It was huge! Deb and I did really good. Poor Deb stayed right with me the whole time, even though my knees were hurting so bad and at times I was not going to quickly :) Thanks Deb! We tried to encourage each other when one or both of us would feel pooped. At the last rest stop I was in a lot of knee pain and sat on the ground while Deb waited in the lines for refreshment. I felt so tired and was so ready to do those last 8 miles and be done. We got back on our bikes and I felt great. My knee felt great and I felt energized. (probably from the sugar rush from the pack of nerds I downed ;) )

We rode into Austin and there were crowds of people lining the streets. It was so exhillerating! We finished together side by side and high fived at the end :)

Then I saw the smiling faces of my three little cheerleaders and Bj and my parents. I was so glad they were all there cheering us on and to see us finish this big accomplishment.

I'm pretty sure that aside from having children, that was physically the hardest thing I have ever done. I definitely would have had the hadest time finishing without my bestest with me! We joked about trying out for the Amazing Race next ;) We'll see!

Thank you all who donated money to my fundraising campaign. There were people lining the ride that had MS and it was touching to see their signs saying Thank you for Riding for Me!  So, thank you for making it possible for me to ride in this great ride! We hope to do it again next year!