Day 18: Willard, UT to Salt Lake City, UT (really Jordanelle State Park near Park City where the Olympics were).

Actual Kms: 162 kms or just over 100 miles which means today...yes today...Sarah Terpstra biked her first American Century.

Overkill Kms: 0. There is no way I'm biking 1 km more than I need to today.

Road Stuff: Dead deer, dead birds, dead racoon, shoe, wire brush, lots of snake skins (again).

Money Spent: Yesterday I spent $17 on multivitamins, bug spray (which I ended up not needing), and vitamin C (Yes Arlene, I'm listening). $4 ice cream and Coors outside the Flying J. It was intentional intergenerational interaction time outside the Flying J. Today I spent $4 on an Arby's cheese and beef melt around 140 kms. Money well spent.

Wipeouts: 0.

Interesting Person Pick: Julia Wissink, who is from Ottawa, Ontario and a teacher (like me). She is a gr.4 teacher who is right now giving me some good advice about what I should do for planning. She is also the person that said "Finally, somebody my age!" when she first met me. When I told her I was 24, she said depressingly "Maybe not." She's 28. She's a great little biker and has a great little dutch pixie face.

Favourite Part of the Day: Calling my parents to tell them that today I biked 100 miles today and having them reply "We're proud of you". Also it was good to hear that they are praying for me everyday and that they love me. Yes, I can be a sap.

Worst Part of the Day: There were two major climbs today, the first was enjoyable for me, the second difficult but I knew it was there. What I didn't realize was the last 20 kms were slightly uphill and there was one 3 km hill right before camp. The last hill I literally had to count in my head to make myself keep going. I said to myself "Let's see if you can do this hill in three minutes." It was definitely more than 400 seconds and I probably starting counting over a few times.
Supper (yesterday) in camp.

Today I woke up at 5:20 and it wasn't the first time that I had woken up that morning. I have a persistant cough that kept waking me up. I felt bad because I knew I was waking others up as well. Time to go back to the medication.

Breakfast this morning-everyone was up very early. When I woke up at 5:20, most of the tents were down and my first thought was "Where did everyone go?"

Today I biked with Stephanie Webb and Julia Wissink. We decided to take it slow for the first 100 kms becuase we wanted to save our energy for the two giant monster hills. We made pretty good time and at the 95 km mark stopped at the First CRC in Salt Lake City, spending about 45 minutes there enjoying gatorade, cheese strings, mini bagels and other delicacies.
Outside First CRC in Salt Lake City. John VanderSTEEN :) two fisting coffee and gatorade.

Then we started the hills and I quickly lost Steph and Julia. The first incline was so bad that I thought I would have to get off my bike (but stubbronly did not). The landscape evened out and there was a persistent 5-7% grade, winding around beautiful homes. I met up with a Salt Lake City biker (there were a lot of them on the hill today) and talked with him about our trip. We kept pace for awhile, but eventually he dropped back and then I made it to the top of the 15 km hill. I made a deal with myself to climb the entire way and I did it. At the top was a beautiful shelter set up by the Utah CRC's (all two of them). A girl ran out to "mist" you and another to give you a power bar and another to get you a drink. There was shade and chairs....basically heaven...or as close to it as possible at 6800 feet.

Also, I had a surprise at the top of the hill. I knew someone in Utah! Cheryl, this is your friend who visited you in PEI. We took a picture together.

The second hill had a reputation. It was on Interstate 80 and about 10 kms long. The biker I met on the first hill had warned me that it was harder and he was right. I got of my bike and rested twice and at the top, had Randy DeWolde (from the famous blog "Where's DeWolde?") take this picture of me. That was probably the toughest hill for me so far because the tractor trailers were barely passing us (they were going like 20 kms/hour and we were going 12 kms/hour) because of the grade. You would look to your left and think "If that honking thing can barely make it, how is it possible that my body is going too?" But then, you keep going and you're at the top. It's amazing how much our bodies can take. This is the view from the top of the first hill.

This is me at the top of the second climb. This climb was so rough that I had to take a picture to prove I did it. Even my billets tonight-Jim and Lynn (boys are Will, 6, A.J, 5, Ben, 2) were surprised we climbed this pass.

The view from the road. It had good shoulders to bike on. At that is the end of week 3. On to week 4!