LOTOJA

Last year Alicia and I decided that this year we were going to do LOTOJA.  It is a 200 mile bike race that goes from Logan to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  

After I had Reese I tried to get back on the bike ASAP.  The first couple of times outside riding I was shocked by how hard it was.  I started to think that there was no way I would be able to do LOTOJA by September.  It took a month or so of major suffering every ride before I started to feel like I would be able to do it.  

Once summer came the real training started.  I would do multiple short and medium length rides during the week and a long ride most Saturdays.  It was a huge time commitment and Scott was always so supportive.  He even went on a lot of the rides.  

As September got close I started to get a little nervous and Alicia got really nervous :-)  She had done it twice before and knew how hard it was going to be.  I was going into the race blissfully blind.  

September 5th finally came and we headed up to Logan!!!  Autumn and Matt came along to help Scott do the support.  After packet pickup the whole team had Olive Garden at a park.  Most of the guys had done the race multiple times (It was Alicia's husbands 10th year in a row)!  The rest of the night was spent getting everything ready for the race.  It was so much work getting all of the food ready for every stop so that it could be brought over to us easily.

The next morning at 7:09 am we were off!!!!

Matt could not get enough of our grab bags and 

loved going through everything that we didn't take at each stop!!!!

I am pretty sure that in the picture above, Scott just told Alicia that the rest of the way is up hill!!!

The day went so much better than I could have ever imagined!!! We had no flat tires, no crashes and nice cool weather with no rain.  Alicia and I had planned before the race that we were going to stay together and wait for each other and it made the race so much more enjoyable and bareable to have her their with me for the whole race.  There were times when it got hard, but getting to see Scott, Matt and Autumn at the stops helped break up the day.  I was so thankful that they were there for support.  It was a long day getting to Jackson Hole for them.

We had made the goal to finish in under 11 hours and we got so close... 11 hours and 4 mins!!!

Oh well, that is what next year is for, now I just have to convince Alicia to do it again. 

Once we crossed the finish line I immediately had to give her a big hug (well, my version of a big hug.. which is more of a side hug :-)  We had worked so hard all summer and I was so grateful that we were able to accomplish it together.