One of the biggest rides in the country and it's in my backyard and this is the first time I'm doing it. Doug was a no-show. Too bad. He really would have had a great time.
One of the big surprises this weekend was that John was going to ask Michelle to marry him. I met John and Michelle in France this summer. Great people! John had mentioned that he and Michelle come down to do this every year since this ride is sort of the reason they met.
First he was going to do it at the start line. But people talked him out of it saying that if she said no it would be a really tough ride after that. He was going to do it at dinner the night before. He chickened out in the restaurant. Eventually he asked her when they got back to their room. She said, "Yes." Congratulations!
I met up with them after dinner to pick up my rider packet.
There were 4,000 plus riders lined up for the start of the 109 mile ride. 8,000 plus if you include all the other shorter rides. John, Michelle, and I lined up for the 7:00 am start at around 4:55 am. We were pretty far up. Once the race got started it only took us 1:20 to cross the actual start/finish line.
Floyd Landis was at the start line. Not to race but just to make an appearance. I wonder what he gets for an appearance fee now? Probably less that he used to. There were mostly cheers for him but more than a few jeers and boos.
Off we went. John's goal this year was to finish the 109 miles sub 5 hours. This gets you Platinum standing next year so you get to start sooner. Last year he missed it by like 2 minutes. There was no warm up and my heart rate skyrocketed right away.
8 miles or so into the ride you jump off your bike and have to carry it over a quarter mile through a dry creek bed. All my cross training really came in handy here. As we got out of the creek a pretty large group formed.
After 45 minutes or so it was time to eat something. I've found that when I try to eat the little gel packs my stomach turns inside out so I brought cliff bars instead. BIG MISTAKE!!! I made a few big mistakes on this ride and that was one of them. It's impossible to eat a big chewy granola bar and breathe enough to stay with the group so I immediately fell behind. After 20 minutes or so I finally managed to finish the bar (most of it anyway) and then I made a push to catch the group.
I caught them after another hour or so and guess what? I caught them just in time to eat again. This time I just took little nibbles off the bar and washed it down right away with water. That worked pretty well for the rest of the ride.
The group stayed pretty much together until the next creek bed. This one was really long. Some people stopped for water, some to eat, and some to pick rocks out of their cleats. John went out hard from there thinking he was behind everyone; he wasn't. Michelle, Colleen, and I got a small group together and we all took turns at the front until we finally caught another big group.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful until the end. We were all pretty much out of food and water with 20 miles left but nobody wanted to drop off the group. Fortunately as we passed the next rest stop some of the volunteers held water bottles out for us to grab. That's the first time I ever did a ride that long without any stops. Michelle bonked towards the end and Colleen stayed back with her as they peddled in.
An hour or so later John and I finished towards the front of a big group. 4:52. John got his wish with a platinum finish. Michelle and Colleen ended up coming in platinum as well with 5:08. The festivities afterwards were kind of lame so we all just split up and met up for dinner later.
I felt really good afterwards except for the dehydration headache. I did a short run and swim just to see if I could do it. I still have the headache 2 days later.
