The Tour LaFitte That Was!

Our second attempt at riding in the Tour LaFitte was WAY better than the first! Two years ago, my friends and I attempted to ride the Tour LaFitte (that wasn't) and just as we arrived at the starting point, the race was cancelled due to an impending crazy storm.

Although we had to deal with a little bit of rain in this year's ride, it wasn't anything like 2 years ago and we had a blast!!

The idea of riding in the Tour again was brought up by a friend and it grew like wildfire! In the end, we had six total in our group!

We were a little nervous about this ride for a few reason - none of us had been biking (although I've been running and another one of us had been doing crossfit and others had been working out in their own way)...we all owned mountain bikes and not "real" road bikes...and we had no idea what to expect.

After arriving at the start line, we headed to the far..far...far...back. As we made our way there, we passed others who were super hard core riders and I'll admit, I felt like a fish out of water. This race offered several distances - 10 miles, 27 miles, 40 miles, 50 miles, and  64 miles, so there were riders of all calibers there (even down to kids with training wheels).

We coined ourselves the "leisure riders" and decided to just take it easy and enjoy our time out on the road.

 ...and we were off!

I wondered how we would distinguish our route from the others and soon realized that arrows had been painted on the ground. Our route was the pink one!

I also profusely thanked this guy for being at this corner because had he not, I might have accidentally followed the others and gone straight! Yikes!

Around mile 4.5, we reached our first water/food stop! They had Cane's lemonade, water, assorted cookies, bananas, and oranges available for the riders.

We might have also spotted a crawfish...and of course we had to take a picture! Y'all know I find "characters" everywhere!

After hanging out for a few minutes, we continued on our ride. My friend Kim kept her straw with her and was fussed at by a spectator for "smoking" while riding! He was joking of course but as oncology professionals, my coworker and I got a kick out of it!

With just a few miles left in the ride, the rain decided to make it's appearance. Thankfully, it wasn't a pouring rain and although it got us all pretty wet, we were still able to continue the ride and finish without any difficulty!

Home stretch...

 ...to the finish!

We had so much fun and really enjoyed the ride. Yes, we were definitely leisure riding but several of us commented how easy this ride was overall and discussed the idea of riding in the 27 miler next year! We shall see! 

All done!

In total, this route came out to 9 miles instead of 10, but who's counting? :)

After the ride, we had breakfast at a local diner (as per our usual post-race tradition)!

And of course, we sported our Tour LaFitte shirts! This race also benefited the Special Olympics which I love! It's always great to support a local race with a good cause! :)

I honestly cannot wait for next year's ride! This really was a lot of fun and a nice change up from the usual races that are offered around town!

Have you ever participated in a bike race?

The Tour Lafitte That Wasn't...

On Saturday, my sister in law, a friend of mine, and I set out to ride in our area's largest bike ride, the Tour Lafitte. For the past 26 years, this bike ride has been hosted around the same time and benefits the Special Olympics. We registered for the 10 mile option and were excited to ride in it for the first time.

I even purchased a shiny new helmet for the occasion!

The weather was the hot button topic all during the day on Friday - the race director even appeared on the noon news to discuss the race.

We woke up on Saturday morning in hopes that all would be ok and it was at first...but the threat of severe thunderstorm warnings and flash floods kept popping up on our phones in the form of news alerts.

As we mingled around the parking lot of the starting location, a race volunteer rode through and told us that the ride had been cancelled. I didn't want to believe it until I saw it on the official facebook page. Within a few minutes, a notice was published to the Tour's facebook page to let us know that the ride had indeed been cancelled.

It seems as if every time Kayla and I get together for an event or race, something crazy happens...from race cancellations to terrible weather, car troubles, missing the start of the race, etc. We don't call ourselves the Unfortunate Runners for no reason, after all!

What did we do instead? Well, we went for a ride, of course! 

After carefully observing the radar, we figured we had about 45 minutes to an hour before the really terrible weather came through.

I knew an exact 5 mile route from the parking lot, so we set off on our Non-Tour-Lafitte adventure! 

We were actually surprised to see others who had a similar idea and were out for a ride as well! 

We made it back and snapped this super quick picture just in the nick of time. As soon as we got our bikes loaded in our cars, the big rain drops began to fall.

 

 Literally, just in time!

We decided to stop at Starbucks for breakfast and got stuck there. It began to POUR! It was definitely the kind of rain that wasn't safe to drive in if you could help it! 

Oh yes, and apparently my name is Carin now. Hah!

I forgot (silly me) about the crazy flooding our town goes through every time it rains a lot in a short amount of time. 

...so not only were we stuck at Starbucks, we drove a little down the road after the rain let up and were stuck again due to flooding!

Somehow, we finally figured out a way around it all and we made it home. It rained again on Sunday (yesterday) and the flooding was even worse - cars were swept away and the police were urging people to stay off the roads. The flooding was so bad, it even prompted a crew from NBC to our area and I hear a friend of mine's husband is going to be on the Today Show this morning to discuss it all...I'm going to have to watch for him!

In the end, we still had fun despite the race cancellation and I do hope to be able to participate in this ride in the future! I'm glad it benefited a good cause and the riders safety was taken into consideration. Just another story to add to our "Unfortunate Runners" scrapbook! :)

Have you ever registered for an event that ended up being cancelled?

Fitness Friday - 4/29

It's been SO long since I've had the opportunity to write a Fitness Friday, so today is a VERY exciting day for me!! Yay!

Currently Training For:

• Tour Lafitte 10 Mile Bike Ride
• 4 Miler on the 4th of July
• Disney's Princess Half Marathon & Glass Slipper Challenge
• Rock n Roll New Orleans Half Marathon

If you read Monday's blog post, you know I've slowly made my return to the world of fitness over the past two weeks or so since Baby Brayden's arrival.

Yesterday, I was going to find a YouTube video I could do from home but completely changed my mind. I was also going to wait until I hit four weeks postpartum to begin my return to running, but I just couldn't stand it any longer. (I made it three weeks and two days...haha!)

So, I laced up my shoes and went out for a spin around the block (after securing Brayden with Jason first, of course)!

By the way, my OB's specific instructions were to resume exercise gradually...so that's what I've done!

I had no preconceived notions with this run. It's been at least 9 months since I ran 3 miles straight through. It's also been since December that I even attempted to run, period. My first strategy was to take it slow, test what pace felt comfortable for me, and see how far I could make it before having to stop - the answer was 0.6 miles without pushing myself. I was worried I would have to start all over completely from scratch again, but I'm glad to say I made it at least that far. After that, I began a Jeff Galloway run/walk strategy of a 3 minute run, 2 minute walk until I hit two miles. My original plan was to stop at 2 miles but if you know me, you know I'm all up for a challenge - so I kept going at that run/walk pace, just to test out my 5K time.

 

(For the record, I was NOT running a 9:46...I have NO clue what is wrong with that app!!)

By the end of the run, I felt as if I had run the entire 3 miles through mud - my lungs were burning and my legs hurt. This body that spent 9 (wait, no 10) months creating another human being ran it's slowest 5K ever. Was I upset? Nope. How could I be? I'm practically starting over (almost) and will get back where I was, it's just a matter of time! Oh yes and guess what? I'm sore today...Hah!

Summer running? NOT looking forward to that!!

Tomorrow, I'm riding in a local bike ride with my sister-in-law called the Tour Lafitte. This is the largest bike ride in our area and has been going on for many many years. It also benefits Special Olympics. I've always been intrigued and wanted to participate, but was always in training for a running event. When Kayla called and asked if I was interested in a ride, I figured that this year was the year!

For this race, riders can choose between five distance options (64 mi, 50 mi, 40mi, 27 mi and 10 mi). We are going with the shortest, the family 10 mile option.

The one item I needed for this ride was a helmet. Jason had to go out last night for a few items so I told him what I needed. I'm not a serious rider here, so you can laugh all you want but my bike is a mountain bike from Academy and my shiny new helmet (thanks to Jason) is from Walmart! Hey, it will work in a pinch!

Did you also notice that runDisney introduced a new virtual 5K race series yesterday? Just when I was bummed over not being able to participate in ANY runDisney events for 2016, this was announced! After reviewing the details and not thinking about it for too long (because I tend to talk myself out of things sometimes), I bit the bullet and am now registered for the Virtual Running Shorts Series. A few local friends of mine are also registered, so it will be fun to complete some of these together!!

...I mean, look at that medal! How cute is that?!

Last but not least, to celebrate my return to running and my new runDisney venture, I decided to dig into my stash of these bad boys! It was about to expire so I HAD to eat it, right? :)

I hope you all have a great weekend! Anyone have exciting weekend plans? Any races planned?