Hotter-N-H*ll

It all started so well. Everyone was happy. Big grins on their faces. You could feel the anticipation in the air:

But then it got bad, and then it got worse, and before the day was over, this is what we looked (and felt) like:

This was our Hotter-N-H*ll experience. At the end, we were tired, sad, filthy, crying, but PROUD!

Let me tell you about it! The Hotter-N-H*ll Hundred is a one-hundred mile bike ride in Wichita Falls, TX (2.5 hours away from Dallas). This was last Saturday, August 29th, and let me tell you, it was really hot!

X and his friends have been training for this for months! He has put in so much work and we were so excited to see how he would do. It started so well! We stayed with our friends in their sweet motor home:

But we got a wonderful 4-ish hours of sleep. Graydon normally sleeps 7:30p to 8:00a, but that night he slept from 11:00p to 3:45a. Oh my gosh. Yeah, we discovered he can't sleep in the same room with us. So I took him in the car and drove around in sketchy areas of Wichita Falls until 5:30...in which he stayed awake! How is that possible?

So then we had a good breakfast...early, but we still have hopes of a good ride at this point! The boys got ready to go (X, PJ-a work buddy, and Paul-a rugby buddy) and we bid them a fond farewell.

G and I stayed back and hung out with Paul's wife and baby. I expected the race to take around 5 hours, so when I got a call from X an hour into the race I knew it couldn't be good.

He said "come pick me up. My race is done." Um, What? I could now go on and on with the details of the horridness, but I'll summarize. He got caught in a bike accident. The guy in front of him crashed (broke his collar bone) and X's tire clipped the bike. popping the tube and tire big time!

Over an hour and a half after the call, G and I take off on a 30 minute car ride out into the middle of nowhere to meet X. We waited for a while because we were assured by race officials that there were supplies and repairmen out at the rest areas to fix everything. Um, no.

We met him at the rest area (that he had to walk a mile to) to give him a new tire and tube. He was the LAST person out there. So much so that they were tearing down the rest area! He was tempted to give up, but after cheer leading from the cheer squad (me and G), he took off like lightning.

We kept driving around the course, meeting him to refresh his supply of drinks (we were out there for four hours, Graydon only slept for 45 minutes...what's up with that?). We thought, "yay, go Daddy! You'll do great now!"

Poor X, the trouble didn't stop there. At one point a bee flew into his jersey and was there for a few miles before he was able to get it out...stung him 3 times on his back. His gears also froze in a high gear (the really fast gear that you use to go up a huge hill) and he had to pedal like lightening to go fast on the flat roads. That happened several times.

After getting lost and X's phone dying and thinking he may not still be riding, Graydon and I finally made it to the finish line to see our go-getter daddy cross the finish line. We were so proud of him and knew it took a lot of gumption to keep going through all of the problems.

He could have finished in under 5 hours, but it took 7 hours, 27 minutes. Better luck next time poppa!

This was Graydon's shirt for the day...how could I put h*ll on a baby's shirt? Hence...the hockey sticks.

Our hard-working dad at the end of the race!