Yesterday went like this: We woke up at 3:45 in the morning, cooked a decent breakfast (egg & cheese sandwiches on bagels) and had the required double-shot of espresso. Perhaps some orange juice, too. We got dressed, got all of our lights on, and headed out the door around 5 am in complete darkness. I was very happy once the birds started chirping, and once the sky started turning grey instead of black. We had our bike headlights on, which kind of, sort of, ALMOST work to illuminate the road – but at least other people could see us. Not that there were other people around. We also had taillights on as well as one of those glow sticks kids use for trick-or-treating pinned to our backs. On Saturday, we had printed up & laminated some photos of Uncle Richard & Papa (in whose memory we rode in this year), and attached them to our jerseys.
To the laminated edges we also attached some stick on reflective stripes to help give us a little more visibility. For making up such a small portion of our ride, we put an awful lot of effort into making sure we were visible for those first 10 miles or so in the dark. We didn’t find much traffic at 5 am on Sunday morning, which was nice, but not surprising. Sane people were still in bed. We did see several trucks towing fishing boats around – but like I said, the sane people were in bed. I had half-expected to get pulled over by the cops in either Bolton or Stow (“are you nuts, riding in the dark? What are you doing? Are you on drugs?) – but alas, no police to be seen.
For the most part, the ride to the start line in Wellesley was great. It was quiet, there was very little traffic, no old men in their front yards staring us down with their hands on their hips (you’d be surprised how often that happens – its creepy. Maybe it’s the spandex.) and even no dogs barking at us. It was just Ken & I. There wasn’t any rain, or any wind, or any sun glare, or anything. A few puddles perhaps. It was very peaceful.
Of course, I got a flat on Rt. 126 in Sudbury (Wayland? Not really sure). We were cruising right along at 22 MPH or so on a nice little stretch, and ‘Ppsshhhhh’ goes my front tire. Big honking piece of glass in there. I took my bike into the shop this morning for a little love & maintenance, and they bike techs were a little surprised by the size hole in that tire. We replaced the tube and lined the tire with a dollar bill to keep it from flatting a second time. Must have worked, because it held. But after going to the shop this morning, I can’t help but think I was very, very lucky for the rest of the day yesterday. I kind of got the impression they couldn’t figure out how I didn’t have a full on blow out at 30 MPH.
We still made it to the start line with a half-hour to spare, which was great. We had a pit stop, got some food, refilled our water bottles, and lined up for the little speech before they let us leave.
The speech was amazing. It was short and to the point. It’s working! We’re helping. It’s projected that in 10 years, cancer will become a chronic disease, not a terminal disease. Think about that for a second. Ten years, on the scale of things, is a short time. In 10 years, all those people who right now are facing a terminal cancer diagnosis wouldn’t have to face the end of their lives so soon. One out of every two men and one out of every three women will face a cancer diagnosis at some point in their lives – in ten years (when I am 40) – that diagnosis wont be a terminal diagnosis. It’ll still be a hard fight. It’ll still be painful, and gut wrenching, but these people who are diagnosed will get more time to live, and perhaps eventually go into remission. This struck me particularly hard: my mother was diagnosed around the age of 40 (she’s been cancer free for about 20 years). By the time I am that age, it’ll be increasingly less likely that cancer will be as threatening as it is now. It’ll be no walk in the park, and there will be exceptions, but still. That is some serious, significant hope. Serious hope.
The start line in Wellesley is completely different than it is at Sturbridge. Wellesley is much more laid back. There are far fewer people (at least on Sunday) and that means far fewer people who have problems clipping in and causing accidents in the beginning. There isn’t as much fanfare, but I’m OK with that. I’m not a fanfare kind of girl. Makes me uneasy. Here's a photo of Ken at the start - i took it mainly because a) he wasn't looking, b) I had to take at least one photo, and c) you can kind of see that there aren't a whole lot of people crowding around him, and we were pretty much right in the middle of "the crowd".
The ride itself was pretty easy. There were few hills, and no real big ones. There was one water stop, where we ate a bunch of food and made glad use of the port-o-johns. We stretched a bit, and then continued on to the end of the ride for 20 miles or so. At one point, I was riding behind a woman from Arlington and I could totally see through her shorts (they were red, and looked like maybe they were a little faded). It was a bit distracting. People: when you wear bike shorts, for the love of god, make sure you can’t see through them. Ask someone you know and trust to check for you.
The end line came surprisingly quick, although I was tired by that point. Actually, I was tired at about mile 60, groaning because I thought I had 40 more miles to go. As it turned out, we had more like 52 miles left to go from that point. The “official” ride ended at 77 miles – there were people cheering you on as you neared the finish line, and one was joking “only a few more miles” (we could see the finish line from there) and I couldn’t resist – I replied… “not for us. We have about 30 left”. I’m a dork, what can I say? At this point, I’ve just gotten used to it.
We hung around the finish line for a while. Apparently, we finished early, as there was only a short line for ordering food by the time we had hung our bikes up and used the facilities. We were going to go back for seconds only to find out the line had quadrupled in length. Oh well. We refilled the water bottles again, visited the medical tent for some muscle rub & ice for the shoulder, and rested for about 15 minutes. Then we stretched a bit, got back on the bike & headed home.
The ride home wasn’t as bad as I had feared it was going to be at mile 60 when I realized I was tired. My quads & hamstrings were shot. I kept running out of gears, but my heart rate was stubbornly low (150 or so going up hills). I was just completely out of gas, apparently. A couple of showers caught us on the way home, but they were short, and actually felt a little good. Not enough rain to cause a safety issue, really.
Overall, our average speed for the ride was 15.65 MPH. The first 30 miles or so, our average was near 17 MPH. For the first 77 miles, cumulative, our average speed was about 16.2 MPH. We really slowed down on that last stretch. All together, the ride took us just over 7 hours of actual riding (time ON the bike). We climbed a total of 413 feet during the ride, which is a very small amount, given the distance (400 feet of climbing is what we'd usually do in 20 mile ride). We left at 5 am and were home by 2:30 pm. I have no idea how long the water stop and lunch took us. I also have no idea whether the ride started “on time” or not. Any way you slice it, it was a long day. But it was WELL worth it.
I sat down yesterday afternoon to map out the ride and start writing this post, but I was incapable of staying awake long enough to get very far. Every time I had to wait for anything to load, I fell soundly asleep, and I eventually gave up out of fear of dropping my computer when I fell asleep. Were went to bed at 7 pm – the dogs were not pleased.
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