LOTOJA

This year Drew and our family got to be a part of one AWESOME experience--The LOTOJA. Drew registered for the LOTOJA and through a few bumps in the road was able to complete the race yesterday. For those of you who do now know what the LOTOJA is, it is the longest single day bike race in America. It starts in Logan, Utah (hence the LO) and finishes 206 miles later in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (hence the JA, LOgan TO JAckson).

My wonderful mom came up on Friday night to stay with Nathan and Rylie while Derrek and I packed up to drive along side Drew to be his support car. We were both so excited we did not sleep much the night before. Drew took off from Logan with his group just a little after 7 am and Derrek and I took off a little after 8 to head to our first feed zone in Montpelier.

Here is Derrek anxiously waiting for his dad to show up so he can give him his bag of fuel. We had no clue what to expect and how Drew would feel and what he would even want to eat after the first 80 miles of the ride. Mostly it was drinkable yogurt, gu, and water--pretty easy.

Here is Drew and Derrek after the first stop, he was feeling great and was still on quite the adrenaline rush. The race was on for us to get to the next stop before he did.

We stopped here (a non feed zone) to see our group come up this mountain climb. This is where people are labeled King/Queen of the mountain and Drew lost this title by 2 minutes--maybe next year. This was an amazing part of the ride because this was the first stretch where we were able to follow all the riders on the same road so we would feed them and they would take off, then we would pass them to the next zone and do the same thing. So we were constantly on the look out for Drew and his group. We barely made it to the next stop in time. We got to Afton and set all our stuff down and were just headed to the bathroom when they zoomed in, good thing Derrek was on the look out, he is the one that caught the group and had us sprinting to the feed station.

We followed the daughters of one of the guys Drew rides with "Bob" so that we would know our way around. They dress up wild every year and this was their "get up" this year and it was great. I can't tell you the attention our group received from them and how many times they were stopped to be asked if they could have their picture taken. This is us waiting at the finish line and people were snapping pictures right and left so I thought there was no better time than the present to get my picture of them in too. They were even asked to sing happy birthday to a girl who had just finished the race and did that for her birthday. It was great times.

Here is Drew coming in at the finish, I was so scared my camera wouldn't quite get the picture in time, I ended up getting it too early, but at least I got it. He was going 33 miles/hr right now so I was lucky to get it. So many people were at the line quite discouraged that their camera couldn't catch their riders because of how fast they were going by, so I am happy I got something.

His final time was 10:27:06--yes that is a full 10 and 1/2 hours on a bike--talk about saddle sore. There are many different categories that you can register for but for the age group and class that he was registered for he took 4th place--not bad huh for his first shot at the race. He felt great after the race and was walking no problem.

Here we are just after he finished and look he is half smiling so it couldn't have been too bad right? NOT! I am so proud of you for completing such an awesome and very challenging event, we love you and we can't wait for next year when you do it again. Congrats on a job well done Drew!!!!