Once again Heather Radcliffe, Gary Worth and I signed up for a LiveStrong Fundraiser, but this year we were joined by Catherine Babin, Buz Tomasino and Gerry Remsen. As a Team we raised $5800.00 in support of a cure for Cancer. This year’s ride was scheduled for Sunday, August 26th, which turned out to be a VERY hot and HUMID day. Great for Catherine who likes the heat, not good for me or Gerry. But so be it. So we all met for dinner after checking into our various hotels and picking up our packets and swag (for those of us that raised over $2500) on Saturday. This is a good time to mention that my number was 666. Needless to say I got alot of attention because of it. We then had a great time waiting over 40minutes for our reserved table. We finally just took the best option which was 2 tables next to one another. No biggie, but this meant less family style dishes to share. After dinner it was off to bed. Catherine, Heather, her fiancé John and I shared a room which was located right across the street from the venue so we were stoked!! After some basic girl chatter, which I am sure cracked John up, although he did not let on, we went to sleep.
6 hours later…..
Our alarm went off, the phone rang and we were up, sort of. It was like deja vu for Heather and I. We all rummaged around for our gear and headed out to the cars to grab the bikes. We were going to grab food over at the venue, which was so close, did I mention that. It was great planning, if I do say so myself. They had bagels and fruit waiting for us which was great. The 4 of us started making the calls to find the rest of the gang and there they were. Shortly after that we heard “Blake, Heather” and we turned around and once again in the midst of thousands of riders, runners and walkers, Joann Plock found us. She was riding with some old friends of Heathers. At this point it is of course picture time, so Catherine breaks out the camera for an assortment of shots. But then the loud speaker comes on and it is time for the cattle, I mean bikers to squeeze into the proverbial pens. Everyone was segregated by route as usual. We were having so much fun at that point I think we forgot about the 100 miles that we were going to be dealing with in just a few minutes. They had set up a very large screen so everyone could see the speeches made by various people and then…..Lance came on stage and did his thing. Then he put his helmet on and headed out for his personalized ride with a special cancer candidate. Then it was our time…100 milers get ready!
The roads started out the same as the year before and then things changed. The 40 mile, 70 mile and 100 mile routes stayed together for the first 20 miles and then the 40 milers split off to head back. Lucky them! It was hot!! We had lost Gerry for awhile. He powered up to the front from the start. At first we hung in there with him, but it was a bit fast for the early stages of our long day. “Pace ourselves” was our motto. The heat was getting to me. But I kept drinking and we would stop and refill our bottles at every other stop, so that helped. We meet back up with Gerry at the second rest stop. It was fantastic how they had it set up. Lots of different options for refueling; banana’s, power bars in ALL flavors, PB&J sandwiches and fluids and gels. Then off we went. Shortly after our departure the hills kicked in. Gerry and Gary decided after the first set of hills that they would take the turn for the 70 mile route and call it a day. Unfortunately we did not know this but we figured it out after making a few calls. So our group of 6 was down to 4. It was a good thing Gerry turned off when he did due to heat exhaustion because the next bit was a killer. Huffs Church road is a 6mile climb….not just a friendly little climb. It’s a cursing, swearing, wishing you were dead kind of climb. BUT we all did it and with some grace still intact. The worst part about the climb was at the top, there were all these chipper people cheering us on. I can honestly say, we all wanted to run them over with our bikes. But then there was a bright side….a rest stop with great food and homemade recovery drinks. There was one more decent climb after that but Buz swore it was smaller so we ventured forward. Buz had analyzed every aspect of the route so he prepared us for all the hills. This was a double edged sword in my mind. Sometimes it is just best to be surprised. Anyway, the last 10 miles were tricky. We were getting tired and our legs were slowing down. But then we saw roads that looked familiar…and then our hotel. (remember how close our place was) YEAH! We did it, we were almost done. Now all we could think about at this moment was how we were going to line up for the finish line and what tasty food we could indulge in at the post event party. Last year the spread was impressive. So we all crossed the finish line together for the photo and then we were cheered on by Gary, Gerry and friends, which was nice. It was a long day and apparently the 40 milers and 70 milers were very hunger because the only thing they had left was beer. I went over to the burger tent to see if they had some buns to naw on and the kid behind the table said they were all out but then I saw it…a cooked burger sitting on the side. It was probably cold from sitting there and no one wanted a cold burger, but guess what? I could care less if it had 4 cold legs growing out of it, I needed food….and a beer. I asked the kid if that burger had fallen on the floor or something, trying the figure out what was wrong with it. He said nothing, but it had been there for a few minutes. I told him to hand it over and I ate it and it was awesome! We were very disappointed by the lack of nourishment available and someone made a stink so they brought in pizza’s. But by this time we were ready to head out and grab a real meal and so we did.
It was a truly suffering experience but it was great to say we did it and why. And we all agreed to come back next year. The tradition will continue.
