Tour de Tonka

On Saturday, August 4th a couple friends and I did a 43 mile bike race as part of the Tour de Tonka ride. Tour de Tonka has several different distance options (16, 26, 43, 77, 100). We originally thought we’d do 26 miles but after training for a couple months we thought we could easily do 43. Haha! It definitely wasn’t easy, but we did finish, even after some intense hills and a big rain storm.

The race was set up really well – tons of volunteers, trail markers, people cheering us on, and several large rest stops to use the bathroom, grab food, get our bikes tuned up and listen to some fun cover bands. We had so much fun, especially after we got past our “wall” around mile 30 when we didn’t know if we could keep going ;) After that our adrenaline kicked in and we were able to push it to the end.

Here we are before the race:

And at the finish line… we did it! Our husbands and kids were all there to cheer us on. It was so fun to get to the finish line and hear Emerson yelling “GO MOMMY!!” Loved that.

As part of my ACL surgery last summer, a large part of my torn meniscus was removed. Because the meniscus is the protective cushioning between your knee, any running over a mile or so gives me intense pain in my knee. I was devastated each time I’d try running after my surgery as I’d come home to find my knee swollen and throbbing for a week. It was misery and definitely made me cry a lot knowing I couldn’t run again. Since I went to college I’d been running consistently since freshman year. However, I knew that there was no way I could do it again without developing some serious osteoarthritis. So with Minnesota's amazing bike trail system and my knee issues, I knew I needed to get into a less impactful sport like biking. And let me tell you I love it. It is such a good workout but is actually really fun too, and even though some hills are insanely hard you get to cruise down once you make it to the top. It’s like a little reward. Plus it’s also really fun to do with friends. I am grateful to have found something that doesn’t hurt my knee at all. After I finished my bike race I wanted to cry I was so happy my knee didn’t hurt at all.  A miracle!