STP

Seattle to Portland: A LONGGG bike (pedal-bike) ride...202 miles! Kelly did it this summer! He wanted to do it last summer, but had an unfortunate Achilles Tendon puncture wound he was healing up from. So he planned to do it in 2010...In February he broke his ankle playing basketball at the gym. That was a weird call to get, since he was supposed to be at Yoga class (he said there was a pick-up game after Yoga). Anyway, due to injuries we thought that STP would have to be put off until 2011...Well, five (yes, FIVE!) days before the race Kelly thought he was in good enough shape to give it a go.

I think I've mentioned our affinity for Craigslist here before, but once again, Craig came through! Kelly found some local people who signed up, but couldn't compete and bought an entrance for STP. He was pretty-much obsessed with it for the next five days: getting his bike in ship-shape, doing research on the course, buying a new Garmin to track his ride, snacks, butt cream (that's a long time to sit on a bike seat!), etc.

So, July 16th comes around and Jeremy is nice enough to drive Kelly up to Seattle where they stay at his Auntie Linda's house. (I was getting ready to embark on my own 4962 mile road-trip on the 18th, so I had quite the packing job ahead of me. More on that sure to come.) Thanks Jer!

I think they had to be up to the University of Washington by 6am. So, Jeremy takes Kelly and sees him off at the starting line, and calls and says he's on his way home. After that, Kelly's on his own. We wait and see what his phone updates bring. He called at the 40 mile mark and said he felt good, called at the 100 mile mark (which was his goal for the day. STP goes for two days, you can choose to ride in one day or split it up in two) and said he wanted to keep going. I was all for that! So he called in Rainier, which is about 30 miles from our home and said to make him a couple PB & J's, grab some ice water, and towels and meet him on the route.

We are at Skinny's with Jeremy and Rochelle waiting to cheer Kelly on, and all the other riders that passed us. We thought we could spare some cheers for them too. Then we see who Jeremy has dubbed "The Brown Blur, aka, Kelly! We are so excited and cheering him on, and you can see on his face how excited he is to see us...Then, the momentous challenge of getting up on the sidewalk...then CRASH!! His life flashes before MY eyes, especially after the injuries of the past year and a half. He's just laying there on his side and doesn't move for a few seconds. Later, I asked what was going through his mind, his answer? "Are you effing kidding me?! I make it 165 miles and this is where it ends?!" Believe me, I sooo wish I would've had my camera to capture it.


Luckily, he was able to get up and brush himself off. The only thing that was majorly injured was his pride. I was happy that he got some new gloves, as they were shredded and it would've been his hands. He was able to scarf down his sandwiches, wipe himself down with the wet towels, drink his water, and he was off! And, so were we! We ran home to try and squeeze a little more packing in and drove into Portland to watch him cross the finish line. As we passed him on Highway 30 we honked our horn and hoped it didn't scare him into another crash (he's going to be SO happy that I'm telling his crash story in Bloggerland).

It was awesome to be at the finish line and cheer on all these crazy people that think it is fun to ride a bike for 202 continuous miles. I actually got a little teary eyed from the pride welling up inside of me for my husband. His finish time was 12 hours 32 minutes. Until next year, happy riding! Hopefully you'll have some buddies to ride with next time and there won't be ANY injuries during the off-season!