September 26, 2009 My Birthday!!

Well for my 34th Birthday Eric and I spent the day riding our bikes. We did the Heber valley century....that's right 100 miles on a road bike. It took us almost 9 hours to finish the ride and it's one of the hardest things I have done to this point in my life, but it feels so good to have accomplished it.

It was a cold start to our ride and we bundled up for it.

Our first rest stop at soldier hollow. It's slowly starting to warm up and so did my muscles.

Eric's madone taking a little break in the shade.

Just after our second stop near the Homestead. The leaf change up in the valley is so spectacular it was such a beautiful ride.

We finished the first big climb up to Jordanelle.....wow I was so glad we were there, until someone said this was the false summit and there was still more climbing to come. Thank god this was at the beginning of the ride.

As we were celebrating our good job on the climb we realized if we climbed this side at the beginning of the ride we were going to have to climb back up the other side at the end of the ride.

Eric so happy to be at the first summit.

Enjoying all the nice downhill and flat riding after the climb.

50 miles down and it's lunchtime. We made it all the way to Oakley and had to ride on some dirt road to get there. At this point my shoulders are starting to get a little tense, but a nice lunch and time off the bike made me feel a lot better.
From there we went out by rockport reservior, Wanship and then out by Coalville and then from there we went back to where we had lunch at Oakley. I was so mentally and physically exhausted by this point I was ready to give up and we still had 35 miles left to go.
After getting off the bike there for a few minutes and getting something to eat my shoulders felt better and I was mentally feeling better so we pushed on but I knew we still had that big climb up ahead of us and it was going to be a challenge. When we made it to the last climb I put my head down and just thought to myself if I make it up this it's downhill the rest of the way. God it was hard but it sure felt good to get to the top. And the icing on the cake was the awesome downhill, when I hit 42mph coming down it made the whole ride worth it!!!

Myself and our new acquantance Brian (the tall guy)on our way back into Heber. We kept meeting up with him throughout the ride and he was great.

WE DID IT!! 101 miles what a feeling good and bad :)

Our proof here is a picture of my odometer!

The happy couple finished the ride!! What an accomplishment and on my Birthday even.