My goal was to raise the minimum $250 again and a week before the event I was short. I was starting to sweat it but then two friends came through and bumped me over. Phew. I thought I might get charged for that last little bit. I love doing this ride but I am not a huge fan of the fund-raising - mostly because I'm lazy about it and hope I get enough donations by sending email alone. I squeaked by this year. If we decide to do it again next year, we're really gonna have to get on the ball earlier and actually plan an event.
Anyway, back to the ride..... my husband and I drove down on Friday and met our best friend in Pine Mountain. We stayed in a cabin at the nearby state park again which is nice because we have a living rooom, kitchen and full size refrigerator. The cabin has 2 bedrooms but only one bath so that's a drawback but not a deal-breaker. Here's a picture of the living room.
We checked in and met up with our friend. We decided to head down to the street festival for the ride to see if there was anything interesting... there wasn't. Maybe if there was something we'd forgotten or if we were meeting up with the team then we'd hang out but as soon as we saw there was nothing going on we left. The challenge with this festival is that most people drive down from Atlanta on Friday afternoon and traffic is always a nightmare. We were there about 4:00 and it was empty.
So, instead, we headed to the local Piggly Wiggly to pick up some supplies. I love small, local grocery stores. We always try to stop when we go up to the cabin or backpacking. They always have interesting characters and items that you just can't find at your local Publix or Kroger. This time it was deep-fried, cajun peanuts and they're exactly what you think they are. The package said you could eat 'em, shell and all - okay, I'll give it a shot. They were crunchy and a bit stringy from the shell. They had decent flavor but I wasn't crazy about the shell and had visions of my insides being drug out from the roughage of the shells and the day before a big ride is NOT the time for that to happen so I stopped eating
them. At the Piggly Wiggly I think we also found the biggest steaks in Harris County. They were HUGE. I had to take a picture because they were that big, they dwarfed Jim's steak. (although, it's kind of hard to tell from this pic)We made dinner, prepped the bikes, hung out and headed for bed. Early the next morning we were up and all getting ready to go. I had a terrible night of sleep and my tummy was unhappy so I was less than excited about riding. We had two of my husband's coworkers also staying with us so the 5 of us got ready to ride. Getting to the start-line and in line were uneventful and we waited to start. By this time I felt better but I've decided my body does not function well on a poor night's sleep - it throws me all out of whack. (this has happened a couple times before races this year)
The big sponsors' teams, Cox and Coca-Cola, get to go first so we had to wait awhile so they could stagger everyone. I was planning to ride the 62 mile route, our friend was riding the 31 mile route and the other 4 members of our team were riding the century. I had been giving our friend a hard time trying to "encourage" him to do the 62 mile route with me. He convinced me he hadn't ridden enough so I let it go. This is the fly-over we had before the start. Yep, they're crop-dusters; gotta love Georgia. :) Actually, it was pretty cool even if they weren't jets.
Once we started, our team was (mostly) able to stay together until the 2nd break point at mile 25. We lost Jim and figured he'd stopped at the first break point and turned to the 31 mile route. Right as we were leaving he pulled in and we were excited for him! Hooray Jim! He joked that he didn't have anything else to do that day and the 31 miles is almost too short. (you wouldn't have heard that out of his mouth a year ago!) The team reached the turn off for my route and I was sad to see them go. My husband tried to convince me to do the century but I knew I didn't have the legs for it this year. That was about mile 32 or so and I was solo for the rest of the ride. I was definitely missing my paceline after that point because I knew the last 15 miles would be challenging.
After I left them, my ride was fairly uneventful. I stopped for "lunch" around 10 or 10:30 and I probably wouldn't have but wasn't sure there would be food back at the start when I got there. The last 10 miles I actually caught some of the stragglers for the 31 route and I couldn't believe it; I was at mile 50 and they were at mile 20. Wow. I knew some of them were struggling so I tried to give them encouragement as I passed, many of those hills are killer. (if you've ridden down there, you know what I'm talking about) I finally made the turn back in to Pine Mountain and the rest was downhill - Hooray, I'm finished! I had some left in the tank but was definitely happy to be done.
The rest of the team was out on the course for a couple more hours and I hung out by the team tents and at the van, waiting. My husband finally rolled in (I was starting to get worried!) and he was hurting. He said he started cramping around mile 80 and it didn't let up. He was bound and determined to finish the century this year but it put a hurtin' on him. He looked like shit when I found him; he could barely walk, he was dehydrated, and exhausted. The cramping took it's toll and it took him several days to recover and he felt back to "normal."
After the ride we headed back to the cabin, cleaned up, grilled out and hung out with our friend. We decided we weren't going to stress about getting to the ride the second day. I felt kinda guilty but I did my part and raised my money so the guilt didn't hang around long. ;) We don't get to see our friend often and it's even rarer to hang out without the girls so that was fun. We decided (well, mostly me because I did have some guilt) that if we woke up in time then we might ride on Sunday but we didn't. After the rough night on Friday night, having the good rest was wonderful.
We packed our stuff, said our good-byes and headed back to Atlanta. It was a good weekend and I'm glad we decided to do it again this year. Next year is definitely up in the air but it's not off the table. Now our friend wants to get a sponsor so we can order new jerseys and form a new team. We'll see how that pans out and then we'll make our decision about the 2010 ride.
Go Team Turnils! :)
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