Habitat Halloween Ride

This past Saturday I rode 30.6 miles in the Habitat Halloween Ride in Durham, NC.  When I woke up, it was 48 degrees!  Brrr!  I haven't been out for a ride in those kind of temps in quite a while!  Good thing I have some biking pants and biking gloves with fingers.  It was also windy, but  it was thankfully also sunny to help a little bit.

This ride was quite challenging!  First, while we were still riding in the city before getting out to some country roads, there were a lot of pot holes and uneven pavement that was not marked at all.  Not fun when you're trying to coast down a hill and not use brakes to keep momentum for what's ahead.  I admit I used my brakes a lot on going down hills...I was just too nervous not to.  Finally outside of the city, we quickly got into some hills.  I know what goes up must come down if you start and end at the same spot, but many of us said that law did not apply on this ride.

Even though I was riding solo in this event, I met a new friend around mile 10 or so that said he was tired of me passing him on the hills.  That made me feel good!  We actually kept a pretty even pace, and so we decided to stick together after the rest stop.  That was really nice, as the turns were not marked well at all.  We actually missed a turn along the way, but realized it quickly and only added about a mile to our total.

The other big challenge of this event was once we got back into the city, they had us on some greenways.  These particular sections we were on were very narrow (no passing), very uneven pavement along with a lot of leaves, and sharp turns to get in and out on multiple occasions.  I don't want to be disrespectful to the event coordinators, but I think that was not very well thought out.

But I persevered and got through the hardest course I have ridden to date!  Thank you all for your well wishes and thoughts for me and both of my sisters on race day!  See you on the road very soon!