Tucson- Day 4 (Kitts Peak)

This morning we started the day with a swim again. For me, my shoulders were quite sore so I knew it would be just a short warm-up swim to try to loosen up a bit without aggravating them any worse. I swam for about 10 minutes, which was 700m total. Actually yards I guess. The bike today was Kitt’s Peak. I didn’t have the best mentality going into today’s ride because I’ve never had a good experience with this one. It seems to always be crappy weather while we do this climb. The first year us girls ended up walking up half the mountain because the wind was so strong we literally could not stay upright on our bikes. It was really scary and we thought we would be blown right off the side of the mountain. Then last year Darian and I only got blown over once where we have to unclip rather than fall over. And leading up to the mountain we battled such a headwind while still on the flats that I’m pretty sure we were holding about 8km/h. Also the sandstorm out there last year was what caused the split in my toenail that I still kind of have. Weird story I guess.

So as we pulled into the super sketchy gas station we always start from I wasn’t too excited. It was a large group of us riding to the mountain and it was quite frustrating. Not everyone was on the same page when it came to communication for pointing things out and keeping a consistent pace. It turned out to be over an hour of this crazy warm up by the time we got to the base of the mountain. We regrouped and started. The incline is mostly the same for the whole 12 mile climb. I did the whole thing with Ashlyn, Laurin, and my dad. We stopped twice quickly for water and stretching but other than that it took an hour and forty five minutes to reach the observatory at the top where the rest were waiting. As per tradition, Gary had cold cans of coke for everyone. The descent wasn’t quite as fun as Lemmon. I found the turns were tighter and the road more gravelly, making it not quite as safe to sail down at high speeds. The way back to the gas station was better than the way there, because it’s a slight downhill and with a tailwind. The group riding skills still hadn’t improved much, but we survived. Total for the day was about 95km. The voice of reason aka Angie convinced Gary to not make us do a run after.

We got back to the house and had a hard time unlocking the door because there had been a repair guy during the day. It’s a bit scary when your keys don’t work. At least the guys now have a door for their bathroom, not that the rest of us ever see their hidden-away room. Once inside it felt really good to clean off the sunscreen and grime in our “vintage” shower. Dinner was ready really fast today; a relief for the chaperones was who had prepared it the day before. We have our challenges in this house in the “ghetto”, but everybody seems to be making it work. We had planned to meet Alberta at the Blue Banana for our favourite frozen yogurt. It was supposed to be a 24 minute drive according to Google and our GPS. We showed up pretty late because we got lost when the GPS didn’t know some roads existed. Thanks to the friendly gas station lady. We finally arrived and joined them for some delicious frozen yogurt. It is a self serve place where you can mix flavours and toppings and then are charged by weight. Now we’re home, it’s been another long day. Tomorrow will be some bricks at the base of Lemmon. Always a favourite of mine so looking forward to it.