Last post in the Tucson series. It's been THREE WEEKS and I am still not finished!!! Luckily, I've saved the best for last...
Mt. Lemmon was one of the reasons I wanted to visit Tucson. It just sounded so hard and yet so much fun, I had to try it. I didn't care if it took me all day to get up that stinkin' mountain, I was going to do it, goddamn it!
Since it had been getting warmer and warmer (in the upper 80s, low 90s) we decided to tackle this as early in the morning as possible. The plan was to ride over to the mountain for our warm-up (about 15-16 miles) and then climb 25 miles to Summerhaven (the "top"), have a cookie, then come screaming down the mountain home.
"How long do you think it will take us to get up it?", RDJr. asked.
"Oh, let's say we go 10 mph, I bet two and a half hours." Ignorant me. "We should be home no later than 3 pm today."
Ha! Ha!
Another funny quote:
RDJr.: "So what's your nutrition plan for this ride?"
Me: "A lot."
RDJr.: "What?"
Me: "I'm going to eat a lot."
As in I had no plan. I think by the time he asked me this we were 14 miles into our ride and I had already eaten two bags of GU Chomps and 3 e21s. After he mentioned this, I took things a little slower. I took in one e21 every hour and a only a couple more individual chomps here and there.
We reached the base of the mountain and there was this climb that was STRAIGHT UP. RDJr. said, "this is nothin'! we climb harder hills at home" I love my boyfriend.
At mile 3 ... still smiling!He was right. That first climb was not hard. We took turns pulling - me on the "flat" sections and him on the obvious inclines. Once again, we stopped to take pictures at mile 3 then headed on. At mile 7 or 8, I had a breakdown. It was HOT. I was guzzling water. I was short of breath. Most of all, I was nervous that we would not make it to the top "in time". In time for what??? The plan. We would not be home by 3 pm.
RDJr. sat me down and gave me a good talking to. Screw the plan! If it takes all day, we will get up this thing. If we have to stop every half mile, we will get up this thing!
And so we soldiered on, and on, and on ...
We have to ride UP THERE??? (see that ridge at the very top?yeah, miles 10-18 looked at lot like this)
There were more stops and more whining (from both parties) but we finally made it to the top!!! It was such a great feeling to do something so far outside of our comfort zone and to have finally met the goal. I do not have to tell you that RDJr. was amazing. He said the most motivating things to keep us moving up and up and up.
We cookie'd it up at the Cookie Cabin, refilled our water bottles, and got ready to head back down. Er, I mean, UP! You see, the last three miles before you reach Summerhaven are downhill. So while that means you FINALLY get a break right before you reach the town, you have to CLIMB back out of the town before you can descend the mountain. It seemed like a cruel joke!!
COOKIE CABIN!
Smiling again! Why? We reached our goal AND we are about to ride down the mountain!!RDJr. is bigger than me and his bike weighs about 30-35 lbs (NO JOKE! THAT BIKE IS HEAVY!) so he went down first - SCREAMING down the mountain. I kept him in my sights the whole time, but there were times we had to be going at least 45 mph. I was sitting as far up as I could, lightly breaking and still going 40+!!!
Yep. It's a mountain.
The ride back to town seemed so much easier too. Guess we were climbing false flats before we even reached the mountain base. It was HOT by the time we got back to Tucson - 90+ and we could feel the heat coming off the pavement. We road 85 miles in all.
Home, changed, and walked down to Time (once again) for a little recovery meal. Back to the B&B for showers and a NAP! But I couldn't sleep ... I kept replaying the events of the day over and over in my head.
We had planned to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner for our last night in town but we were too tired. We wore our nice clothes, but we didn't bother to iron them!! We were a sight! We applied sunblock before we left but both of us got a LOT of sun that day. RDJr. looked like Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer!!! We went back to B Line for dinner and then BACK to Time Market (second time that day) for a pint of Ben and Jerry's that we ate while snuggling on the front porch of our room/inn.
We both did something really challenging and we worked together to reach a goal. Oh sure, we bickered a bit, but we didn't kill each other and if anything, we have more respect for one another now.
On Thursday, our final day in Tucson, we skipped the run in Saguaro East and opted to check out the stores on 4th Ave. and grab a margarita lunch. It was the perfect end to our perfect vacation. We were really sad to leave but remarked that it would be a place we would love to visit again soon!
An Irish Mexican restaurant? No, it was simply St. Patrick's Day.
No caption needed.