‘Fifty shades’ of Pole Pedal Paddle teamwork

By now, most everyone has heard of and perhaps read and/or seen the book and movie, “Fifty Shades of Gray.”

Saturday afternoon, NewsChannel 21 was introduced to the six women who teamed up under the name “Fifty Shades of Grey Hair” as they embarked on their very first U.S. Bank Pole Pedal Paddle.

“To me it’s like, the way you become a part of Bend is if you do the PPP,” said team member Anne LaFerriere.

Which prompted six women to sign up for the race. Step one to entering the PPP: Come up with a clever team name.

“We were coming up with something, and some of us have gray hair, some of us don’t — but I grew gray hair,” Lili Alpaugh said.

“This is the only day of my life that I’ve ever been happy to have gray hair,” Margaret Martin said afterward, with a laugh.

“Fifty Shades of Grey Hair” may have faced 50-to-1 odds to win the race, but that wasn’t going to stop them.

“We just decided, you know what, at our age, let’s just dive in,” Martin said.

So dive in they did. Starting with Alpaugh, who took care of the pedal portion of the race.

“You just keep plugging away,” Alpaugh said. “If it’s 10 or 11 or 12 mph, you keep going and pushing the next gear — and trying to keep breathing.”

Once Alpaugh got off the bike, it was fellow “grey hair” LaFerriere’s turn to stay with the pack.

“All the people who I passed, I stayed in front of, so I didn’t get re-passed,” LaFerriere said. “So that was a major accomplishment.”

Every good PPP team also needs an anchor. Martin may not have had the most demanding task, but it might have been the most important.

“It was awesome,” Martin said. “I mean, all their hard work, and I get all the glory.”

Once they completed the race, like any other group of Bendites, they enjoyed some ice-cold brew.

With one race under their belt, don’t be shocked if you see the grey next year.

“We actually planned on this to be just fun, but now we’re all checking our times–we might train next year,” Martin said.