Million Miles at Miller

I had the chance to a bike "race" in September called Million Miles at Miller, it benefits Mike Miller Foundations and Make-a-Wish Foundation. They had the choice of 25, 55, or 100 miles---this year I choose to do 25 because at the time of signing up the most miles I had ever ridden was 16. I hope to be able to train and try for the 55 at least next year and possibly the 100. Rather than retyping everything I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote to my family in our weekly letter. I apologize for the length and lots of details in advance. 

Saturday morning I woke up at 6, got dressed, filled water bottles, and made sure that I had everything together ready to go for when Derek got there. Derek arrived at about 6:45 and we started loading the bikes onto my car. Of course Mom took some pictures while that was happening. We headed out, when we were almost there Kayla texted that she and her parents were going to be a little late and asked if we could pick up their packets when we picked up ours. They ended up getting there only about 15 minutes before the race was supposed to start, they still needed to check the tires on their bikes and make sure that everything was ready to go. It was a bit chilly (48 when we arrived)! We all ran to the bathroom and by the time we got started it was about 10 minutes after 8 (the race officially started at 8 but you could do late start up until 9:30), we weren't the last ones to start but I was still a little bummed that we didn't get to start with everyone else. The first mile I wasn't so sure if I wanted to go through with it and finish, we passed a hospital and Derek said that there was an ER that I could go to if I needed it. At almost mile 5 the uphill started (there were other hills but mile 5-10 was a constant hill that was "rated"), it wasn't terrible at first but the last mile or so was complete uphill. My legs weren't terrible, I was in the lowest gear but was able to keep peddling, I didn't feel like I was moving very quickly and only stopped once before the straight uphill happened because my hands were numb and I needed to get blood circulating through them again. The worse part of the hill was I couldn't breathe, my breaths were coming in so struggled. It was a hard hill and I made it, I even passed a couple of people on it! After the hill we had about another mile until the first rest stop, never was I so glad to see a rest stop! We had some snacks and refilled our water bottles. Derek and Kayla usually wanted me to be in the front so that I could set the pace. After the rest stop we took off, immediately after the rest stop I saw a snake and screamed! Derek thought that I was screaming about something else and he freaked when he saw it too! I thought that it was dead but Derek was pretty sure that it was alive, which makes it even worse! We were going downhill from there and I was going 30 miles per hour for a bit, that speed and wind was even more exhilarating and gave me more energy than the food than we had eaten at the first rest stop. The 2nd set of 10 miles flew by so much faster than the first set, I felt like we had just barely started again when we came to the 2nd rest stop. After the 2nd rest stop the last 5 miles seemed like nothing. I couldn't believe it when we pulled through the finish line that I was done! They had a group of cheerleaders and student council from a local high school with cowbells ringing and cheering as people came through, they also had some people dressed up as princesses and superheroes. We took some pictures and then went and put our bikes on the car before walking around and looking at the different booths that they had. There was a BBQ lunch provided for those that had participated in the event that we enjoyed and then we decided to head out. We were driving home when we realized that we were driving along some of the path where the 100-miler was going so we decided to see if we could possible find her parents, we spent about 30 minutes driving through Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs trying to find them, we finally figured out where they were and drove past them cheering (they were just passing the 50 mile mark) and then parked so we could grab some pictures of them (Kayla's dad informed us that he thought we were a siren and he was really confused why a cop was doing their siren right as he passed them). We were driving back to Kayla's and there is this construction zone, there was a ditch that was 2-3 inches deep that I hit and didn't see. The straps on the bike rack snapped and our bikes went down and dragged for a bit before I could pull over and get off the road. Sadly all of our bikes suffered some damage- both Derek's and my bikes have a bent rim (we've already gone to the bike shop and they are too bent to repair) and we aren't quite sure what is wrong with Kayla's but know that there are problems. It was kind of a sad ending to the day. We all went home and showered and then Kayla and I went back up to South Jordan to be there when her parents finished the 100. I was glad that we went because they finished 3rd and 4th to last and there was no one else really there to cheer them on their finish. They had never done a 100 before (they did 80 a couple of weeks ago) and this was a big thing. We had grabbed a couple of cowbells and clanked them loudly and cheered as they came through (there was a random guy there that started honking his horn on his car too as they came through so I was glad that we could make it a little special as they finished). After we hung out with them for a bit and got them food we headed back to Lehi to meet up with Derek to go to the State Fair. We went, got some food, and wandered around for awhile. By the end of it we were all pretty tired and came home and all went to bed pretty early.