My friends and I, the Mustache Riders, won the bike commute challenge in SLO for the month of May! We took the most trips on our bikes. I rode my bike 140 miles this month for 101 trips. Our team of 10 rode a total of 1888 miles for 1512 trips saving 0.79 tons of co2. It was fun to drive my car as little as possible. I’m going to try to continue. My favorite part of it was noticing things on my bike I wouldn’t have noticed in my car, like the smell of freshly cut grass, sunsets, and all of the friends who saw me and waved hi who wouldn’t have noticed me in my car.

I “competed” in Wildflower Triathlon today as relay team #8135, aka Xanadu, with Shaba swimming a mile, I biked 24 miles, and Meghan running 6 miles. We did the shorter olympic distance but the long distance was twice as long. Yes, that’s right, we did the least amount of physical activity of anyone competing in the event by doing the olympic distance with a relay team. The people who won the long distance completed all 3 courses in like 4 hours and the olympic distance in 2 hours. It took me 2 hours just to finish the 24 mile bike course! Well 1:51 and 32 seconds to be exact. Talk about being fit! My friends completed the whole courses by themselves and kicked ass too. Jesse completed the olympic distance in 2:42 and Garrett in 2:28 and I am still waiting to hear about Johdan who I am sure killed the longer distance on Saturday. It was crazy to see so many people, of all ages, pushing their bodies to the absolute limit and the people just spectating and cheering were awesome. Our friend Hawk puts on an energizer bunny suit at the top of what’s known as “the nasty grade” to keep people going. Lots of naked bodies and silly screaming people to help pump you up. It made me want to get my old cheerleading uniform out. The triathlon actually started as a blues music festival so it still has the festival atmosphere, there were live bands playing all day, tons of people camping who weren’t competing, and lots of vendors, beer, and food booths. Another friend of ours hooked us up with special guest passes and we got in to special places and ate free catered food all weekend. We were totally spoiled. So, instead of eating typical camper fare I overate delicious catered food. Since our relay team didn’t race until Sunday I ate food and drank tecate all weekend. Instead of overexerting myself like most of the athletes and getting extra fit, I feel like I gained 10 pounds! Ha.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend. I hope that I am kicking ass like the 72 year old dude I saw on his bike when I’m older.

Click here to see the rest of my photos from the weekend. Click here to see me in action during the race.