"Pedaling The Prairie"

Hey TV Land,

Its Valentine's Eve and I'm feeling poo. I have come to the conclusion that cycling in 35F weather is not conducive to one's health. Anyways, this past weekend I participated in my second training ride. Pedaling The Prairie was in Hempstead and it was hosted by Conoco Phillips and all proceeds went to Faith West Academy.

For this ride, my mom was unable to come with me but our friend, Chan was able to ride up to Hempstead with me. When we got there, there was a quite a lot of people. Prior to the ride, I had registered for the BP Training Series and the Pedaling the Prairie was one of the rides. The best thing about signing for the training series is that you only pay once and get to participate in as many rides as you want. Thankfully its cheaper because I don't have to pay approximately $35-$40 for each ride.

The ride started around 9AM but I didn't leave until 10AM. Why? Well the riders were sent off in waves so the riders who averaged at 20mph started first. I average around 14mph but it takes me a while to engage into my bike so I was part of the last wave which was good because I didn't have to worry about people passing me. Chan didn't like that I was at the back of the starting group and was saying that I should be in the 20mph group but I was fine where I was at. For the first 9miles, I was doing really well. There was a tailwind, I was riding at 16-17mph and finished 9 miles in 30minutes. I don't know if that's good or not but in my opinion, it was a HUGE improvement from the last ride. After the first stop however, it was rough. I had a headwind ranging from 10-12mph, which dropped my speed to 8mph. It sucked. Although the next stop was in 4 miles, it took forever for me to get there. On my way to the next stop, I attempted to help a fellow rider whose chain double-backed on itself. Thankfully a SAG truck stopped and took her to the next stop. At the second rest stop, I ran into my friend's dad who was a ride marshal. It was nice seeing a familiar face, hopefully, I'll meet some more people. For the final 11 miles of the race, I had a horrible headwind and a few hills. Again my speed was 8mph and it took forever. In the end, it took me 2 1/2 hrs to ride 24miles. I'm sure that if I didn't have a head wind for 15miles, I would have finished sooner. But my friend, Mrs. Sharon Russell, said that having a headwind and hills is good resistance training so I'll bite my tongue and keep cycling. Approximately 2 months till the MS 150 and there is plenty of time to contribute, my link is on my page so feel free to donate!! My next ride isn't for 2 weeks so be on the look out for that post.

On a brief side note: I will be posting 2 blogs sometime this week so I thought I would let yall know so you can check them out.

Deuces Yo!