Gina Six rides Hotter 'n Hell

Well, what an incredible day we had to ride!  Temperatures stayed down, along with the wind for the most part.  We had an overcast day with a slight shower around mile 40 which kept us nice a cool.  So much for hotter than hell!  We were truly lucky with the weather.

At the start line there were nearly 10,000 cyclists lined up with tandems, recumbents, high end bikes to cruisers. They lined everyone up by their category: tandems and recumbents, 100 mile racers (pros, etc.), fast 100 milers, regular 100 milers (that was us), 60 milers, 50 milers, 25 milers and 10 milers. So you can imagine the crowd! We were all packed onto one street like a herd of cows. The National Anthem played while 10,000 + people became silent. Then an Airforce flyover, followed by a cannon shot to start the ride. WOW! I had chills. It took a good 15 minutes of shuffling and walking before we were all actually able to fan out enough to ride our bikes, ever so slowly at first.

The ride was awesome and fast. We did the first 60 miles at about an 18mph pace, hitting a rain shower around mile 40 which made for some wet socks and bottoms! At the 70 mile mark, we had to stop. I had run out of water. Wish we hadn't had to have stopped, because warming back up after a quick pit stop is tough enough, but add a 10 mile slight ascent along with our first headwind of the day and man, I was traveling very slowly for a while. Thank heaven Adele was there to draft off of and urge me along. Another quick stop at mile 80 for some more water (yes I ran out of water again after only 10 miles this time) and a pickle and we were off until the end.

What an incredible feeling when we saw that finish line. Although I felt really good, at that point I felt like I was going backwards. I thought I was going to have to slap Adele and call her a few choice names as she told me, "I feel like I could go 20 more"! And, just to be clear, it wasn't really 100 miles; it was 102 miles! That last 2 don't seem real important when you are talking about 100 miles, but let me tell you, I could have done without them!! We felt great at the end and you'll see from the pictures we did not collapse at the end, but jumped with excitement! What a rush!!! Thanks Adele for being my coach and cheerleader! I couldn't have done it without her!

And, on top of that enormous goal, I managed to raise $1000 for Extra Hands for ALS. Until next year!!!

Gina

Posted by Editor at August 31, 2005 04:46 PM

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