6 Hours At Alafia

It didn't start off good. My Dad and I decided to do a little warming up before the race...the warm up lasted, I don't know, about a minute. I was looking back at my Dad, the same time I was going over a root and ended up crashing. I fell on my face and bruised my leg. You know it's a bad bruise when it immediately turns a greenish purple color. So...it was time to cry. I don't know if I was just tired or what.

Feeling better and ready to race.

And we were off.......

I felt very strong on laps 1 and 2 until...............

Lap 3 caught up with me. I started crying in the middle of it. My Dad was trying to talk to me, but he was making things worse. I was completely 100% MISERABLE!! The longer laps ( 9 miles)... and the mud and roots on River Loop were killing me too. I finally made it though lap 3... and I was sooooo DONE!!! My entire body ached and there was no way I was going to continue with the race!!!

My Dad decided to go out on his 4th lap, while I rested. Time to cry a little more. Then... I don't know how my Mom did it, but she actually got me excited about going out for a 4th lap. I definitely needed some Mom time!! She got me to eat and drink. She gave me the super pep talk and then, I was ready to roll. Just had to wait on my Dad to return.

I think my Dad learned his lesson on leaving me behind. 1st thing was, he crashed on his 4th lap (the one without me). He swears an armadillo ran out in front of him, yeah right!! Then, on the next lap he went to put some air in his tire and ended letting all of the air out. So, we walked the bikes back to the start (which was about 3 miles) to put air in. He told me to go ahead and go but, I didn't want to leave him. I think that lap ended up taking us about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Here we are, finishing up our 4th lap.

I missed my goal by 1 lap, but I'm still happy with how I did. I know I would have regretted not going out for that 4th lap. And because I did, I ended up placing 3rd. I think there was a total of 7 solo beginner women.

I love the podium, it was a picnic table.