Sun Devil Spirit

This weekend was the annual Tierra Bella bike ride in Gilroy.  And, it was also the same day as the annual Pat's Run in Tempe (in memory of Pat Tillman).  I really wanted to join my ASU friends for Pat's Run, but Tierra Bella fell on the same day and that took priority from a training perspective.  And, while a lot of my teammates were also riding in Tierra Bella so were some of my friends.  I wanted to ride with them instead of the team, since I rarely get to ride with them anymore.  And, in order to be with my Tempe friends in spirit, I donned my Sun Devil jersey for the day.


It was so great to get so many "Go Devils!" and "Hey Sun Devil!" cheers as people passed me (yes, I get passed a lot). When I got to the first rest stop, one of the volunteers, Leo, saw me and was so excited that he asked to take a picture with me.  He said, "I graduated in '67.  I bet that's before you were born!"  Yep.  

Someone rode by and told me that her daughter was graduating from ASU next month.  Another woman saw me and said her daughter was starting in fall.  I ran into a woman who told me her husband went there and loved it (well, duh!).  A gentleman approached me in the parking lot after the ride was over asking, "Hey when did you go to ASU?  I graduated in '71!"  And, two people came up to me at the second rest stop saying they graduated in '89.  Nick commented that if he ever wore a UC Davis jersey that no one would react that way to him.  And, I replied, "That's because ASU has school spirit!"


So besides all the ASU love I felt out there this weekend, I also had a great ride.  I rode the 60K last year and found it challenging.  This year, I registered for the 100K, which has a healthy climb in the beginning.  Looking at the elevation map, I was nervous, but it ended up being nothing I haven't done before (small victory).  The descent was great and there was even a girl dressed as a skeleton out there with a "SLOW" sign (I guess someone had to get air-evac'ed two years ago since there are some sharp turns), which cracked me up (not the crashing part, but randomly seeing "Death" on the side of the road).  The back half is the 60K course so it was great to ride that again just to see my progress in the past year.  Besides some headwind, which was frustrating, I couldn't believe that I actually thought those 60K "hills" were hard last year.  And, on the way back to the finish, I finally got to feel the benefit of a tailwind, which was awesome!