RAAM RED!

So the reason it’s been so long since my last blog post is because I’ve been busy Racing Across AMerica! I was recently a member of an 8-person bike team called Team Life Changers (www.teamlifechangers.org). I’ve done our bike logo on my head before:

We raced our bikes 2989.5 miles from Oceanside, CA to Annapolis, MD. Our team colors were red and black, so I figured a red mohawk was in order. The day before the race, I put on some red gel and one of the only red shirts I own, compliments of CLIF bar:

6/17/11

Then we went down to Oceanside and had everything inspected. Here I am, hoping that I put my helmet stickers on correctly:

Pretty soon, it was picture time! Getting ready:

Here’s our awesome team – father/daughter (youngest at 15yo), father (his daughter was our assistant chef), father/son (second youngest at 14yo, father represented in empty jersey), husband/wife, missionary:

My husband is more bald than me now!

I had so much trouble finding a “real” red hair dye! Before trying any color, I bleached it and re-shaved our team logo bike pattern:

6/15/11

The first color I tried made my hair bright pink:

RED wine...really?

So then I bleached it again…twice:

Crossing my fingers that bleach won't ruin the color!

Then I tried a color called Coral Red, which made it orange:

Pretty, but not what I had in mind...

Finally I found a (different brand) color called “Truly Red.” I kept the orange underneath, and it worked!

6/16/11: Much better! Red with a hint of orange, just like our team color.

I tried to take as many pictures of my hair on this trip as possible. The red faded quickly back to orange, but for the most part, it matched our jerseys. Here I am on about the fourth day:

6/23/11

A couple days later, it faded more…but you can barely notice with the beautiful background of the Appalachians in West Virginia!

6/25/11

Later that day (I think; the days all sort of blended into one, with a schedule of “sleep when you’re done, wake up when it’s time to ride again”), I made myself a recovery drink with a hand-made funnel while trying to balance with in the moving RV:

You can barely make out the image of the bike...

Later still that day (maybe?), we made a stop at Gettysburg, and got a picture with my husband:

You can't see here, but he actually shaved his head bald for this trip!

Finally, 7 days, 8 hours, and 30 minutes later, we arrived at the finish line! Hair = completely orange:

I had planned on dyeing it again during the trip if I could, but I valued sleep too much. I’m surprised I actually got a chance (correction: TOOK a chance) to shave my head in the middle of all of this. At any rate, I brought my red gel with me, so when we had our celebration wine, I once again had red hair:

The next day, my husband and I went for a nice relaxing ride, AEB this right here:

It's good to be done!

I flew home the next day, and my husband is still making his way home in one of the RV’s. In the meantime, my head has become a bit fuzzy:

It’s time to bust out the razor again!

Finally, shaved the sides…

And, just in time for 4^th of July, I dyed it red once again:

7/2/11

7/3/11

Happy Independence Day – God Bless America! It truly is a beautiful country, and it was amazing to experience 401.25 miles of it on a bike. Maybe some day I’ll do the whole thing…