This week was a big week for athletic feats in our family. To kick it all off, I went on a big, long bike ride with a few friends.
Back in September of 2017, I did this same ride – Tempo Velo Farmondo – out in Sterling, Illinois. That year, I’d ridden over 1,000 miles and was in great cycling shape. I rode just a few hundred miles in 2018 and might have eclipsed 100 miles this year. So to say that the ride 2 years ago was my cycling peak is absolutely true.
Anyhow, a new friend has gotten into cycling and just bought a new road bike. He wanted to do a big ride – and the two friends I rode with last time also invited me to do it again. So I gave in and decided to gut it out…for 82 miles. We all signed up for the ride again and hoped for the best. There were about 40 people riding the long course. We had a police escort out of town. It was pretty neat. Even if it was raining.
Around mile 17, our new friend had a crash. Luckily, he wasn’t going fast – but got a pretty bad scrape from the fall and slide. His bike was fine, and other than the scrape, he was fine. So on we rode. At mile 23, another friend got a flat tire. Luckily, he had a spare tube. He swapped it out and on we rode. At mile 39, we hit the big hill. After a 1/4 mile of 10-12% grade, it let down into the 4-6% grade for another 3/4 of a mile. That climb completely drained my leg strength. The deep-down fibers that are only there for emergencies. I knew I’d have to gut out the rest of the ride after that burning that emergency strength.
With about half of the ride left, I struggled to keep up with our little group. Being good friends, they waited for me at road crossings and rest stops to make sure I wasn’t dead on the side of the road. With about 10 miles left while at the last rest stop, I told them to go finish and not wait for me. I got a final burst of energy and finished just a few minutes after them.
While I may not have been “ready” for this long of a ride, I’m pretty happy that I gutted it out and finished in a respectable fashion. It’s a tough course – with 3,000 feet or more of climbing over the 82 miles. Where we live, I could ride the same 82 miles and climb less than 500 feet – so the hills are definitely challenging to a flatlander.
While I was out riding, Karissa took the kids to the YMCA and ran 6 miles on the treadmill. She didn’t take any pictures (or have an event photographer) to document the feat. After her run, they had fun at the pool. On the way out, she saw a flier for Youth basketball. Adelaide was barely old enough to participate, so she signed her up! It began the next Saturday.
Karissa did take pictures of how great her Norwex products are: cleaning our bamboo floor with nothing but water!
Before 
After
So on Friday night, we went out to buy Adelaide some basketball shoes. She wanted to find shoes with “unicorns, rainbows, and Princess Jasmine” on them. We told her finding all of that on a shoe that is also a basketball shoe would be hard. She cried. But we got it together and began the search.
Walmart had a purple, shiny shoe with rainbow bows. But she said it wasn’t comfortable – and it wasn’t very athletic-oriented.
Target had nothing she liked, despite having some solid choices for athletic-style shoes. While she was laying on the floor crying about shoes – because she was disappointed and tired – we almost gave up. As a last-ditch effort, we decided to stop in at Famous Footwear. None of their shoes seemed to fit Adelaide’s style needs. I saw a pair of black Nike’s with flowers on them. Karissa said she saw them too but couldn’t find Adelaide’s size. She looked again and found a box way in the back. Adelaide tried them on and said they made her jump really high. So we bought them!
The next morning was a big league-wide practice and evaluation. There were only 12 kids there. The league is for kids (boys and girls) ranging from Pre-K to 1st graders. Adelaide is therefore the youngest. And one of just a few girls. She was out of her element, but said she had fun. She smiled the whole time and raved about how much fun basketball is afterwards. We were relieved. Also, I signed Karissa up to be the coach of the team 🙂
After the clinic, we put the kids in the childcare area and ran on the treadmill. Then had family fun in the pool.
And a weekly post wouldn’t be complete without the latest dish we tried at home. We found an Indian “simmer sauce” at the store and threw a bunch of veggies in a pot before simmering in the sauce. It had lots of flavor and was really good. Next time, we’ll probably include chicken – but all of us ate it!
