A Night in Old San Antonio

San Antonio aka Alamo City

Last week I went to San Antonio to visit friends and family but most importantly, to celebrate Fiesta! Fiesta started in 1891 as a one parade event to honor the heroes of The Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto, but it has evolved into a 10 day celebration of San Antonio’s culture and tradition. There are 100 different events taking place across San Antonio and I went with the intention of participating in two.

I arrived in SA on Thursday evening and had some mani/pedi time with my Mom.  Shellac seems to do the trick when training for an Ironman. We went to bed fairly early due to the big shebang on Friday of going to Night In Old San Antonio (NIOSA), with my dear friends. We planned to get to the downtown party by 5:30pm so I needed to make sure I got my bike ride in earlier that day.

A big thanks to “Scrub” aka my buddy Chris, for giving me a route to explore during my visit. I wanted to try and get about 40 miles in and I knew whichever route I took around my parents house would be challenging considering it’s known as the Texas Hill Country. He gave me a route to follow that was 38 miles round trip and turns out I would be able to do the route starting from my parents house by only adding a few miles. It had been drizzling all morning but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from my solo riding adventure. It was a bit precarious during the first few miles as I had to go through quite a few traffic lights and I was uncertain of how the traffic would react to a girl on a bike next to them in the rain. You never know who might be texting behind you!

I finally reached a point about seven miles in where I made a right off the main road and could start to feel the elevation gain. It was nice to see so many “Share the Road” signs along this route. For a two lane hilly scenic route, I didn’t expect to see so many. This made me feel a bit more safe.  Chris had also told me about the Chili’s or Home Depot I could stop at to use the bathroom. I stopped at Chili’s and realized I was in Boerne, Texas next to my grandpa’s old house! That drive growing up felt like it was 100 miles away from our house but instead I looked at my Garmin and I was at 22 miles. If I turned around, I would have completed 44 miles total. 

Here’s where the dilemma comes in…Chris had also told me about a gnarly hill a few minutes past this rest stop I just made. He said it would make me question cycling! Should I turn around and do the 44 miles or continue on and find this hill? Ummm, Challenge accepted! I decided to trek on thinking a few more miles wouldn’t hurt and neither would conquering this legendary hill. Unfortunately, my bud Chris miscalculated a bit (I forgive you, Scrub!) and it was still further away. At this point, I was getting hangry (combination of hungry and angry) and knew I didn’t have enough nutrition to continue on and make the full ride home as I intended to stop at a convenience store that I never found. So…, I didn’t see the dang hill after turning around 28 miles in!

I turned around and thought I could cut off some mileage by taking the access road of a major highway I-10 back home. That was fun! But again, with little nutrition and lots of time passing through my disorientation of street names, I was continuing to get "hangrier". About 42 miles in, I realized I needed to call a sag wagon as I continued to get soaked and was getting closer to my deadline of showering for the big night out with the girls! Mom came to the rescue and picked me up at 46 miles. Moral of the story, make sure you don’t rely on stopping at a convenient store in the Texas Hill Country that you think you might come across and also, always stick to the original plan. No sense in riding extra miles when you don't have too! With just enough time, I showered quickly and was off to spend the evening with some of my San Antonio favorites and had a blast at NIOSA. 

Tickets for food and beverages at NIOSA!

Sisters from another Mister at NIOSA!

We’ll just say the next day was rough and my biggest goal of the day was to make it to the Night Parade with my family. Last year, Anthony and I participated in the run that kicked off the parade. The parade route is about 2.5 miles long but my parents seats are at the very beginning of the route every year so it ends up being about 6 miles trying to get back with street closures. I opted against that this year and saved my energy for a six mile run on Sunday before heading back to Arlington. Next year I will do some better planning as I saw there is the Fiesta WildFlower ride on Sunday morning which has distances up to 100 miles.

If you have never checked out Fiesta before, I encourage you to be one of the 3.5 million visitors next year and if you’re training, you’re bound to get some workouts in, even if it is just “bicep curls”.

One of the floats in the 3 hour night parade