Welcome to Our World!

Well I did it!!! (kind of!) I was so excited to be able to say I did the whole race, but part is better than none right! The first day was canceled because La Grange the stop over point got 12 inches of rain Friday. It ended up raining all day sat so I think it was a good call in the end.

So after plans changed a hundred times we were on our way. I stayed Sat night with my riding friends in Schulenberug at the oakridge motor inn. Don't ever go there. I mean it! It was so horrible is was funny. I guess if we had been riding that whole first day it wouldn't be bad...but oh my!

We got up bright and early Sunday morning to misting rain and fog! But when we got to the town square it was starting to clear some. It was so neat to see how many people where there. They were expecting 50% to come but over 85% showed up....totalling over 11,000 riders. And yes it seemed like that many people. I tried to take a picture to show how many people where waiting but you can't tell how massive the crowd was form the picture!!!

The wind was horrible. A few times it pushed my bike to the side and other times would push my bike to a stand still if I didn't peddle really hard! So I skipped the first rest stop and then stopped at the second and who did I run into....Jacob Lira....my college roommate for a semester! He is probably one of the last people I would expect to run into in a sea of 11,000 but it was so great to see a friendly face. (I hope you made it to Austin Jacob!!)

Then it was major hills, lunch, hills, bikers all around, hills, a breakpoint or two...and then the finish line in Austin. Daniel was waiting for me at the end and it was so great to see him!The crowd at the end was incredible..people all over the place and lining the street for about the last mile cheering you on. I can't get over the amount of volunteers this race takes, all the sweet people along the roadside cheering for strangers and the amount of people who care about the MS community. I didn't except to be so overwhelmed by the whole thing. But sometimes I get so mad at MS and what it does and takes away from Daniel, so it felt like I was working really hard to get somewhere for him!!!!

My friends Ann and Diana were a gift from God in this whole thing. I was really bummed when Mary couldn't ride and didn't know how to approach the ride. Then one day I sat next to Ann on a bench at the Y and some how I started telling her about my situation and she invited me to do some weekend rides with her and her friend. They taught me so much and encouraged me a lot in training and on race day. I am so very grateful and owe a ton to them!!!!

Thank you to Mom and Dad for watching the girls Sat and Sunday nights. I know they can be a handful but they had so much fun with Mimi and Papa. Thanks also to the Almans for watching the girls Friday night!! It was a team effort to get the whole weekend done!

I leave you with this last picture of my beautiful sunburn. This was taken right after it got done riding so now that it has had time to set its much worse! uhhhh I took ridiculous. Feel free to laugh. I will just have to wear better sunscreen next year....................:)

Thank you so much to everyone who donated. Daniel and I were beyond surprised and moved by the amount of people who supported us. It was really great for Daniel to see how many people are really vested in supporting him and find a cure or at least a really good solution for MS!