B5- B, Beck, Babies and Burton: "Date" day

The start of the race... looking very fresh and chipper!

Chris and I have always talked about doing the NYC 5 Borough Bike Tour together. It's a 42 mile bike tour, that takes you through all 5 boroughs of NYC (beginning in Manhattan to the Bronx, back to Manhattan, cross the 59th street bridge to Queens, over to Brooklyn and finally over the Verizano Bridge to Staten Island. Once in Staten Island you end at a park, feel great, think you're finshed.... and then find out it's another 4 mile ride to the Staten Island Ferry to get home). Chris and some buddies did it last year, but I had to back out at the last minute because I had just found out I was prego.

We signed up months ago, but as the race neared, I began getting a bit nervous. My bike was still collecting dust in the closet and my opportunities to ride it were very slim (J loves adventure, but hanging from the handle bars is a big advanced for her at this time). I began to count on bad weather keeping us home (OK, not quite counting on it, more like praying for it), but as the forecast came out, it called for 80 degrees and bright blue skies.... yikes!

Chris convinced me to purchase some bike shorts ( my bottom side will forever be thankful to him for this) and I resided myself to being a bit stiff and walking with a limp for a few days.

Chris's parents came in the night before so they could watch J, as line up was at 6:30am. We were joined by Christian the night before and race day bloomed, bright, blue and warm.

The long and short of the race- it was a lot of fun seeing all the different areas of the city (although the 3 minutes we were actually in the Bronx was a bit surprising, but for those of you that know the Bronx, it was prob. good it was only 3 mins) and I felt pretty strong.... at mile 10. Christian had a pedometer on his bike, so as we were sailing down the FDR (possibly one of my favorite parts), I yelled out to him "so, this is about 1/2 way right?!" Nope, 32 more miles to go.... yikes!

The most challenging parts were the BQE (it was an 8 mile stretch that we hit right around 2pm, so the sun was pounding, we had already completed 29 miles and my legs were yelling...) and the Verizono Bridge. The only thing that really kept me going up that bridge (and yes, that is up, you have to ride up the steep incline in order to get across that sucker) was the bet we made that who ever walked their bike would have to by the first round of drinks. Being the broke mother I am, I knew that couldn't be me.

We crossed the finish line 6.5 hours after we started, tired, thirsty, but very happy. Christian got some great pictures as well as video because he has a death wish and likes to hang off his bike backwards in order to "get the good shots".

It's something that I'd love to do again, but at this point I'm just happy that Chris and I were able to do it together. It's the special moments, like us biking down the FDR, when we looked at each other and just smiled because we knew we were checking this off our list, that I treasure so much.