The Accidental TOURist

Does anyone remember that old Saturday Night Live sketch with Kevin Nealon called Mr. Subliminal? It was an awesome sketch. For those who don't know, Mr. Subliminal would be holding a conversation and slip in subliminal thoughts throughout. I will demonstrate as I describe for you my thoughts on this last Saturday's Tour de Safford and Gila Valley Health Raisers' Event.

It was a (long) really awesome (long) event that provided a (long) unique opportunity to (long) see some amazing athletes (long) compete in a (long) unique event we don't see in the Gila Valley very (long) often.

Now granted, the above sentence is not my most effective use of the English language, but hopefully you got the idea.

I can't begin to tell you how early 4 o'clock in the morning is. It is like finding yourself in a ski lift chair in the dead of winter in a bikini. People do it, but it is so wrong that most sensible people never experience it. Unfortunately, I now know what it is like to be wearing a bikini in the dead of winter...wait, that analogy didn't quite work. Let me try that again. I am now aware of what it feels like to be awake and attempting normal human functions at 4 a.m. To be fair, I have been there before. In fact, in college, I was there a couple times on the other side of going to bed, but those are totally different stories. From my rambling, you can see that I have still not recovered the sleep that was lost from this last weekend. I can't even form coherent thoughts. So let me start from the beginning and try again.

A year ago, the hospital foundation had its first annual Gila Valley Health Raisers' Event which included among other things, a 1/2 marathon and 30 mile bicycle ride. It was a marginal success, but one of the riders was from Mesa and happened to handle some of our insurance needs at the hospital. He approached the foundation and expressed his interest in enlarging the bicycle portion to be more in line with bicycle rides held in Tucson and Mesa. The foundation listened and out of that process, the Tour de Safford was born.

The Tour de Safford consists of a 33 mile bicycle ride that goes for 15 miles down the Airport road and Safford Bryce/Bryce Eden road and then they turn around and come back. I myself am not aware of a personal need to bike 30+ miles, but if others are willing and wanting to do that, I say more power to them.

It also consists of a 66 mile bicycle ride that winds through Solomon and then out to highway 70 by way of Daley Estates and then back through Thatcher and Pima, all the way to Bryce Eden Road and then back in...oh wait, you have to double back over the bridge in Safford and go back out to Daley Estate, down Reay Lane to Bryce Eden Road and then back to the Airport. Other than farmers and ranchers who feel some obsessive need after a rain storm to drive the length of the valley and see how rain fell in every part of the county, I don't know anyone who covers that much of Graham County in their car on a single day, let alone on a bicycle. It is kind of insane. If I go over 66 miles on a regular day in my truck, I am complaining about the cost in gas that I have just incurred. But, oh well.

Finally, the big event is the 104 mile ride. That is right...one hundred and four miles. Some of us could reach the Mexican border if we drove 104 miles. The route is from the Safford Airport, down through Safford, up to Discovery Park Road, across 191 to the old Solomon road and out to Highway 70 then to the 191 south up to 3-Way, then down to Duncan and then back up the 70 to the Safford Airport. Oh and by the way, after you have ridden 100+ miles, you get to make the climb up that hill from Sanchez Road. All I can say is...I will never do that. I just won't. It won't be out of protest or anger or any other reason. I just can't think of anything that would motivate me to the point of wanting to sit on a seat that becomes more and more of a torture device with each passing mile for that amount of time and distance. I think it is crazy. The only thing crazier, is some of the people we met who signed up for this. There were a couple of ladies from Colorado who fly around the country doing century rides (more than 100 miles) every month. Incidentally, they both wrecked less than 25 miles in and were unable to finish the ride. My guess is that the Tour de Safford has been removed from their 2011 calendar.



Anyway, my involvement included helping with registration the night before until 9:30 and then being at the airport at 5:00 a.m. to get the starting line up and functional before heading out to direct traffic. At 7:00 a.m. when the 200 riders who made up the 104 mile ride took off, all joking aside, it was awesome. Only three people in that group were locals and so we had a ton of people coming to our valley for the first time and were getting to experience an October morning in the Gila valley (those kind of mornings which exemplify why we live here). It was hair on the back of the neck standing up kind of cool. Unfortunately, less than a quarter of a mile into the race, one of the first riders hit a cattle guard incorrectly and was thrown face first into the ground. One of the riders right behind him later described it as if the hand of the devil reached up out of the ground and flung him off his bike while his bike remained standing motionless. What was I saying about a great first impression for all the visitors to our valley? By the way, when I say face first, I mean face first and his day was over before it began. He spent the entire ride in our Emergency Room at the hospital. Overall, we ended up with 4 people in the ED from this ride. Those of us who were new to this were horrified. The cyclists themselves? Just another day at the office for them. They said it happens all the time at every ride. That's exciting and perverse all at the same time. The winning riders made it back in just under 4 hours and 40 minutes. Holy Crap! Speeding along in my truck with my Ipod blaring I can barely make that drive in 2 and a half hours. That is sick.



About 9 a.m., I realized that in my early morning stupor (and I mean stupor, I tripped on my way to the shower no less than 5 times because I couldn't get my eyes open) that I had forgotten sun screen...and a hat...and something to drink. I then checked to make sure I was dressed. So I called my wonderful wife Shannon who dropped everything and drove out to provide me with all of the above including my request, which was Dr. Pepper, and my necessary for living need, water. We kissed, she left, and I was alone on a road directing traffic once again.

Also as part of this event, we had the 1/2 marathon again. This event was neat only because a lady from our ward won the female side of this event and came in second overall, just 2 minutes behind the winning male. Major Congrats Kerry, Kerrie, Kerri...(shrug of the shoulders) Good job Sister Scarbrough.





About 10:30, I gave up my road standing job and went into the event to take some pictures. Before long, we realized we were not totally prepared for the taking care of returning riders, so I jumped in and spent the next 4 hours slicing oranges and bananas, keeping water ice cold and handing these items out to riders while visiting with them about the event. Not a bad job really. Had one rider come up and say casually, "Do you have a lot of LDS folks here?" I responded that we did. He said, "I thought so, a lot of the aid station workers looked LDS." I said that we had used many of the scout troops from the local LDS wards. He looked at me and said, "You look LDS." I took it as a compliment although how he could see that through the sweat, dirt and sun burn, I am not totally sure. We had a good little chat.

The 66 and the 33 mile rides went well and everyone from those rides were back by 3 p.m. which is when we were hoping to wrap things up. Unfortunately, we still had about 15 riders out on the 104 course. So while most everyone else went home, myself and handful of others waited for the remaining riders. And we waited...still waiting...waiting a little longer. Finally at 4 p.m., myself and another individual took off in my truck to go find out just who we had left and where they were. As it turned out, we had four riders within fifteen minutes of the end. Unfortunately, we also had one more rider about an hour away. He was a 67 year old man who had never done one of these before and he was not going to quit. To which I say, awesome. Go get 'em dude. However, he is now added to the list of people who are very effective at making me feel like a complete waste of space on this planet.

About 5 p.m., he made it to the finish line and all five of us that were left clapped really loud for the guy. It was pretty cool. He was shaking quite a bit so I had to open his water bottle for him. But I offered him a banana or an orange, both of which he declined. I asked if there was anything else I could get him. He replied that all he wanted was junk food and beer. Why didn't we think of that for the finish line. Dang it. Well, there is always next year. Anyway, by the time I had loaded and then unloaded it was almost 6 p.m. and I still had to get over to the ward trunk or treat with my family. Is there any way I could get out of going without feeling guilt? I couldn't think of one either. It was an exhilirating day. However, I definitely do not want to do this more than once a year. Thirteen straight hours after about 5 hours sleep is not an occurance I think I could handle much more than that.

Over all it was a pretty neat day and we are very excited for next year. The woman in charge of the Tour de Tucson let us know that the first time they held that event, they only had 198 riders. The following year, they had 621. We are definitely looking forward to next year.

Now in an unrelated matter, check back in a couple of weeks for an exciting series of posts that we are holding off on announcing for a surprise effect. It is not that we are trying to surprise anyone reading this blog, it is that we are hoping to surprise our kids. We will see if it works.