Utah Tour de Donut 2010 - and the Amazing Donut Diva's

So me and the gym besties signed up to do the Utah Tour de Donut.  Ride your bike and see how many donuts you can eat and actually keep down?  Sounded like a kick in the pants good time to me!

(l-r Ree, Tib, Me, Ana, Queen Diva, Guppy and BT - not from our gym, but we welcomed her anyway!)

Loaded up the bikes, headed to American Fork and got ready to kick some boot-ay!

We met up with the Guppy and her main squeeze, which we quickly dubbed the Queen Diva. I'm not sure he's very happy about that, but he'll have to get over it.

(kiss her like you mean it!)

(the original Diva's - Ree, Tib, Ana, Me, and Guppy)

And the fantastic Guppy made us all very cute Donut Diva necklaces to wear.

The event organizers were lot's of fun and we had been bantering over FB with them for the past several weeks.  You now, things like demanding chocolate donuts, bragging about the Diva's, asking for a group rate entrance fee...all the really annoying things.   They seemed to take it in good fun, which impressed me, but even more so, took some time at the beginning of the event to recognize the young woman who was killed last week while out cycling with her girlfriends.  They did a memorial lap for her and provided everyone with white ribbons to wear in her honor.  That.   Was cool.

As the pack lined up to start, I was itching to weasel my way to the front.  My diva friends were finding a safe gap.  This was Rees first race and she was a little nervous about the sheer number of cyclists all crammed together.  I lined up with them, and tried to tell myself to just relax and ride  Even though, it was billed as a race and there were prizes, I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter, just stay with the Diva's.

The horn sounded and all my good intentions went right out the window.  Gone.  Like little dandelion seedling from their stem when your stupid neighbor kid blows them on your nice grass.  Like the proverbial dust in the wind.  Gone.  I pushed my way to the front of the pack and turned loose.

Of course, I forgot to reset both my watch and the computer on my bike so I wasn't exactly sure what the time was when I crossed the start line, by now I was pushing hard and navigating my way around other cyclists.
My M.O. when doing any kind of race or event is to get a general idea of the course, but not too specific.  So, in my head, I had it that we were doing 4 laps of 5 miles each.  After each lap you came in, had your bib marked and ate as many donuts and you wanted.  The number of donuts was marked on your bib and then you were off for your next lap.  At the end, they took your time and deducted 3 minutes for each donut you ate.

My strategy was to come in, skip the donut and do the laps as fast as I could and see what time I could pull sans donut allowance.  Besides, the idea of all those calories was giving me a little bit of a freak out!  The rest of the Diva's however, were in it for the FUN!

(I think they had the better idea - have fun.  I need to learn how to do that!)

Back to me.........So there I go, pedaling along - doing my laps.  Looking for my diva's and even entertaining the thought that I MIGHT, MIGHT even see the Queen Diva if he chose to break down for a donut.  Nope.  No one.  Nothing, but other cyclists.

After the first lap, I noticed my time and thought, okay, not bad - can speed up a bit  The second and third laps were much faster and as I came in after the third, I got some water and looked at the clock.  The start of the race was 9:00am.  I wanted to finish by 10:30.  So, off I went as fast as I could, with lungs burning and quads screaming!  As I rounded the back end and could see I was going to just make my goal, I even let myself entertain the idea that I could possibly place!  Woohoo!  I love me some winning of something!!

I flew across the finish line, looked at the clock saw 10:30, felt satisfied and then heard my name being called.  I look up to see another friend from our gym who informs me that they have been paging my name at the late registration table.  Hmmm....  well, I was gonna ride the course backwards and find my diva's and cross with them, but I decided I would go to the table, see what the event people wanted and then go look for my friends.

As I approached the table, there are all my Diva's!  Wha?  I don't remember you passing me?  Huh?  Wha?  We get to talking, and instead of the event being 4 laps of 5 miles each, they were 3 laps of 6.something each.  They had done the 3 laps and were waiting for me!  HOLY HANNAH!!  Are you freaking kidding me??  Okay, so yeah, I went an extra lap, but now I have no way of knowing if I actually placed.  Wow......slight let down.  And then when I saw the Shark smirking at me, all I could do was laugh.  Serves.me.right!

So why were they paging me at the table?  Well they were paging all the Diva's.  Seems the event volunteer that handled the FB page, Glen, did a little favor and on his own, provided chocolate donuts for the Diva's for the finish line!  How awesome is that?  By then, a chocolate donut was just what I wanted!

(joining us in the pic is Glen the event volunteer who put up with our crap on FaceBook and made sure we had chocolate donuts at the end.  Shout out to GLEN!)

We chatted a bit, took some more pictures, then loaded up and went home.  I checked the official results and saw my time and I wasn't even close to placing with my 6. something extra miles, but I've decided it's okay.  I got in some extra mileage, pushed myself hard, and had a great time.  Besides, the Queen Diva ended up going 7 laps so I guess I have something to aspire to next year!

(love my Diva's!)

Oh and check out the luckiest of us all!  Deb, (Ree's wife) won the grand prize raffle - this uber cool bike!

Now she has NO excuse not to join us next year!!