Something Random, Something Non-Paleo, Something Old.

Hey Bloggers,

Yesterday was the Tour de Lab bike event, I volunteered twice before-- free ride, shirt, and beer included! Hell, why not!? Giving up 2 hours in the morning to set up, and get things running, then before closing, we head out and zoom around on our bikes, get rewarded with beer and food. Hell yes.

This year, I had dragged Maks in volunteering with me, encouraging her to participate in the "Big Dog" which is a longer route with a large hill slapped on the map. She had paid and biked in the "Puppy" which is a route with rolling hills with 18.7 miles (Big Dog is 41 miles). She decided, why not? That way she can finally see what the Big Dog looks like, and I reassured her that in my past experience, volunteering the first stop (after going uphill for 17 miles), it's all dooooooowwwwn!

My mistake. I was told that the route was reversed, my route down was the way up, so our way "down" was the old "uphill" route. I thought, well.. no biggie.

Poor Maks. It was up, up, up, and long way up. No intervals, just up. She was actually... about... to... cry. She was not dying, but you could see her horrified eyes and she sucked up her complaints in the first half hour. Before reaching the top, she finally rolled out her complaints. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then the rewards started coming in. Rolling downhill on curves. Wind whistling through our sunglasses, our legs buckled, and tapping the brakes. Swiiisssssh!!!

Complaints turned to smiles. She drafted behind me, keeping up with my pace (my roadie, Sunny is light weight, so I had to scope out the road down).

As we reached the bottom, into town, we rode our short cut through downtown to the finish line. It was a clear, hot day, so we wanted to rest (and frack it, we had to do some moving afterwards, conserve our energy, conserve, conserve!) and grab our meal.

I pointed out our plates of lunch and said "I think I should blog about this. Who is the Greenarie and the Meat Lover?" Maks burst out laughing and exclaimed "YES, do that!"

Can you figure it out? Who is the Greenarie and the Meat Lover?

 Obviously, they do not serve Paleo food, but we needed to eat to regain our energy. Honestly, it did not do much. I was still hungry and feeling tired. My vegetarian soy hotdog (I don't like meat hotdogs) topped with cheese, chopped onion, and sauerkraut, corn chips (I thought they would serve salsa or something), lightly dressed cabbage salad, and red potato salad. Maks' is obviously easy: two beef hotdogs with ketchup, cheese, relish, a pickle, and two chocolate cookies.

By the way... did I mention? I carried a watermelon on my back all the way!? YUP! Volunteers get to bring home the left over snacks, and they had a lot of watermelon left, so I snugged one on my backpack. Worth it? We'll see.

Sunny and the watermelon that I carried. Near the top of the long hill before we winded down.