The Lakeville race with kids

 The race L-M-L was the first race in the gravel season on my wish list in this year. But in the last moment the  life corrected my plans  (Dan got sickness) and I have to switched my plans and went with my girls to the short distance of the race (40 miles course).  And this will be good training lessons for Nadia (almost half distance from Almanzo 100 in our wish list on the May)
This race  90% gravel roads, about 2000 ft elevation gain.
This article less about race and more about how to ride long distance with your kids. What to take with?..


To ride long distance (ride|race) with kids it is thought . And the  mostly it is hard mentally (physically too, of course) .
Main things:
about riding kid:
- you have to know ability of your riding kid, be sure that kid ready for this distance
- you have to know key for motivations your kid keep going!
- you have to have plan A and plan B (if something going wrong)
- you have to choose right speed for ride, rest...
- you have to have tasty food (kid love this, when motivation going down )
-  some extra clothes for your child (especially for weather like we had
about kid in the trailer:
- age ? ( this is all individual, we started to ride from 3 month old and use car seat inside trailer and fixed it)
- you have to practice to do it for short ride
- better to choose nap time for the ride (my Yeva LOVE to sleep during the movement )
-you have to  have enough clothes and blanket for the kid ( in winter,spring, fall time). Because you moving and do not feel cold and your kid sitting without movement. So, I use sleeping bag for that.
- you have to have all what kid will probably will needs ( toys, diapers, food ,extra clothes)




All this you have to keep in your mind.
So organizers was so nice to us and gave us #1  number ) 
Nadia still amazed and always says " Mom everyone knows you ")))) And I always said- this is bike community what about .

We started with all group . But few miles after almost all people passed us ). But I tried to keep our goal speed .  This race have a lot of hills and I know most of this area ( I rode here a lot with kids too)
That is why when we are riding Nadia recognized a lot of places .

We rode pretty good, Yeva asleep for the half of the way. Nadia like to play in the words (Russian game). So half of the way we played  in it.  Some of our course had  really wonderful views .

 We made one stop after 25 miles for rest,food and I had to changed diaper for Yeva.

 Last 10 miles was brutal - headwind, hills, cold .... and speed went down from 12 to  10 miles per hour.

 At the finish line Nadia got bike gloves and was so happy about it ) . We did nice ride.
 3 h 48 minutes riding time + 10-15 minutes for the rest.
I really love to ride with my girls. To see how they grown up and started to be stronger makes me happy.

 PS during the race we took all bottles which we saw on our way from racers in front of us , it was good way to teach Nadia that we could not leave trash on the road and keep planet clean.

Life is all about priority )))