Day 2 was a 102-mile ride and I thought "102 miles, 4100 ft of gain. That's not too bad."
Nope. I felt pretty rough all day. We started around 7:40 and I started feeling it after the first rest stop. At least it only rained a little bit this day.
I was doing this ride with Scott and Jeremy - two great riders who I knew would be pushing me. However, given my performance while doing a century in Boulder two weeks ago, I thought for sure we could get this done in under 6 hours of ride time. But we didn't - we took our time and it was truly painful at parts. I was so done with climbing, realizing I'd probably pushed the hills they day before a little too hard.
I was a little bummed to find that my Garmin file from Sunday did indeed manage to delete itself. Especially after 85 miles with some really good climbing on my part, I think I may have lost some sweet Strava trophies which I'll never have the chance to snag again. Oh well - it's just Strava.
At mile 69 of the century, I needed the rest stop badly. I laid on the ground and stretched my hips and back. Yikes. At mile 86 it started pouring rain and we hid under the tent at the rest stop thinking "well, only 16 left and we have to get it done." The rain passed and we made it happen - still coming back to camp soaking wet.
Day 3 I had about nothing left to ride. I lost all my ride buddies and spent the first 11 miles just looking for someone to ride with. This gave me the opportunity to ride through almost the entire group and chat with some people. I talked to one of my Falcon teammates and another woman who just came off chemo. I am consistently impressed with people on this ride - so many people ride every mile with hardly any training or conquering huge hurdles, like illness. I definitely cannot complain about any pain I feel on these days.
At about mile 30 I found my feet were starting to fall asleep and it was cutting circulation off to my calves. I pulled over and yanked off my socks and felt much better. I'm thinking my cycling shoes are just too small, especially given that I'm fairly sure my feet were swollen at this point in the week. After lunch we pushed through to the end as best we could. in true fashion, I found myself energized towards the very end and put in a solid 3-mile pull after our 58-mile stop.
Prior to the start of this year's tour, I thought for sure that I would be turning around and ushering people in at the end of this day - but I had nothing left. I just wanted to get off my bike. But, as I did every other day, I did spend as much time as possible standing at the finish line cheering people in. I cannot imagine the number of hours they put in on the bike. In fact, I was talking to one of my ride buddies, Jeremy, about how long most riders spend in the saddle and for us, it would be equivalent to spending 3 days riding about 400 miles! I cannot even imagine.
Was excited to get this picture snapped this weekend. I never fail to make ridiculous faces.
