Race Recap: Venus de Miles

At the end of the Venus de Miles, two happy gals!

Sunday morning was my July Year of Racing Slowly event: the Venus de Miles! This was my first time doing this 62 mile women's road ride, which started in Lake Forest and went all around the trails and roads in Vernon Hills, Libertyville, Mundelein, Hawthorn Woods, Long Grove, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield and Highland Park - quite the tour!

My best biking buddy Lisa and her beautiful 5 month old baby Aislin slept over on Saturday night so we'd be ready to head out insanely early for the 7 am start - we left both Aislin & Eliana with Savva for the 9.5 hours we were gone, along with the additional help of my mom for the morning shift and our friend Ali for the afternoon. We arrived just barely in time for the start, so there was no time for a bathroom break - I believe that this definitely upped our average speed for the first 15 miles before the rest stop.

A note about our training for this ride: both Lisa & I are in great shape right now, fitness-wise. She's been doing cross-fit, and I'm doing all of my marathon training runs. But, riding a bike for 62 miles rests on one thing and one thing only: how tough your butt is. And that's why you SHOULD build up to that distance with a number of training rides; do a couple of Saturdays with a 30 miler, then a 40 miler, then a 50 miler, along with some shorter rides during the week and you'll be fine. But Lisa & I are busy mommies, snuggling our little people for many hours a day, and so our training for this ride consisted of exactly one 26 mile bike ride. Which is 62 backwards, so that counts, right? Plus, Lisa watched the Tour de France and has a bike tattoo. I wore t-shirts with bikes on them for the three days leading up to the ride. So we were totally ready.

All in all, it took us about 6 1/2 hours to cover the miles, including 4 lengthy rest stop breaks where we snacked on the ample yummy food and I laid in the grass and stared up at trees while Lisa pumped - yeah, Lisa managed to do this ride just 5 months after giving birth to the wonderful baby girl that she is exclusively breastfeeding - total ROCK STAR! But, this did result in us being at the VERY END of the ride - like, literally, the sweeper people rode past us when we were just about 4 miles from the finish and asked if we were okay and if we were going to make it, and admonished us to stay together. Ha.

But, ladies, if you're considering a long bike ride for next year, this one has great support during the ride and an AMAZING after-party. There were manicures, pedicures and mini-facials being done by beauty school students, two free cocktails, a Mexican feast, and boutique gourmet ice cream. We arrived near the end, so they were out of ice cream and our manicures were a bit rushed, but that's just extra motivation for us to train better next year to go faster! Of all the athletic things I'm doing this year (running, stair-climbing, swimming & biking), biking is definitely my favorite by far, especially with such great company. :) Thanks, Lisa!

That's the great post-ride food, chowed down by Lisa!

The next day my shoulders, neck, arms & back were really sore, so I took a very nice rest day - but now I've got to get right back to training for my August event, the International Distance Chicago Triathlon on August 26th! Don't forget to come cheer me on for this one!