Sixty-Three

Today kicked my butt. I did the Goldilocks Bike Race - 60 miles.

I had trained for 40, but last week my friend that I was going to ride with wanted to switch. I kind of wanted to as well. The 60 mile route looked like a lot of fun. From what I  remembered  it was quite rural, mostly flat with a few rolling hills.

I think that might have been the case ten years ago. Several new cities have popped up along the route in the last ten years and it seems the majority of the drivers drive big white trucks.  I don't know if the roads are new, but the hills are definitely more than rolling. One of the hills we hit at the 50 mile mark was the longest steepest hill I have ever done.

This would have been challenging enough but there was a second, more exhausting element at play..the wind. It was very, very windy. Headed south we had a wonderful tail wind. I got up to 38 miles an hour going down Monster Hill. It was fantastic.

Unfortunately, we went down first and then had to face the monster hill plus head wind starting the last twenty miles of the ride. It was brutal. The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't hear a sound from my headphones, that I had turned up to high. (Sorry, Peter Segal) There was an army camp at the top of the hill and not the rest stop I was hoping for. Unfortunately Monster Hill was followed by several more, less challenging but still exhausting numbers.

Before Monster Hill the wind played another fun trick on us. We were riding East, perpendicular to the wind on a road that didn't have much of a shoulder.  For whatever reason the entire town seemed to be driving by in their big trucks at that moment. This would have been stressful enough, but the wind was making it crazy. Time after time after time I thought the wind was going to blow me over, not into the trucks, but in order to keep my balance my upper body would swerve that way. I kept feeling like I was going to fall, with no place to fall but where the trucks were driving. I have rarely been so scared biking.

All of that drama aside I am really proud of myself. This is easily the hardest ride I have ever done, and while tired and sore I felt good at the end. I fueled well and pushed hard. The ride was run really well and all of the volunteers were wonderful.