20th Annual Tour de Donut

It's in the books (however, their site is not updated with 2008 results as of this writing). Nearly 1,000 people attended this year -- I think the number I heard was 975-ish. The longest distance someone traveled in order to participate in the event this year was achieved by a couple from Hawaii.

My bike computer said 1h 39m and some change to complete 32 miles. I faded a little in the latter half out of tiredness, naturally, but more so because I took one water bottle and it was gone by the first half. Actually, it wasn't completely empty, but the remaining H2O in the bottle was in solid form. There was water at the donut stops, but I skipped it because it had rained earlier and it would have taken too much time to trudge through the mud to get a bottle, trudge back, etc. In the end, I averaged 18.1 mph.

I don't know my standing yet for this year, but I am hopeful I again landed in the top 10 in Women Under 50 category -- donut-uncompensated, of course. ;) Last year I squeaked in at number 9.

After the ride, hubby and I stopped into Staunton's "block party", which they throw in conjunction with the Tour de Donut every year. Picked up a couple of grilled items and some mini funnel cakes and chowed down.

I can't say enough about how welcoming Staunton is to all the crazy cyclists that descend upon their town once a year. They always have tons of volunteers doing registrations, passing out t-shirts, guiding everyone on the course, picking up trash, stopping traffic, and many more behind the scenes. In addition to the volunteers, lots of residents park their lawnchairs next to the course and clap and cheer as the cyclists go by, which provides an experience that most of us amateurs rarely get -- it's a treat to be treated like a celebrity or pro athlete! After all, who among us regular folk doesn't need a little cheering on now and then?

UPDATE 07/13/2008 - Roger Kramer has some info about the results and his TdD adventures here. He says the results are expected to be posted some time this week.