Most people celebrate their birthday in a rather traditional way- dinner, party, bar hopping, whatever. I opted to ride my bike in circles for 24 hours. Huh? Back in January I had this grand idea to ride the 24 hours of Spokane..solo. This is actually quite funny because I do not have an endurance muscle in my body- how would I survive riding for 24 hours?
After a brutal 7 hour drive (thank you traffic jam) we rolled into the campground and set up shop outside the VanderWaal family "house on wheels". I barely slept that night- was it from anxiety or the constantly slamming door of the port-a-potty? We woke early on Saturday, made some last minute tweaks to my bike then had an awesome pancake breakfast courtesy of Aaron's mom.
I finally had the "why the hell did I sign up for this" moment as I put on my team kit. And then Rebecca Rusch rolls by and I feel my stomach turn over. OK, I know I'm not here to compete but when the world champion shows up you can't help but feel inadequate. Fortunately for me she was on a relay team...whew!
The race went something like this:
-Lap 1: LeMans start and then I spent the rest of the lap figuring out the course.
-Lap 2: Faster than #1, nothing remarkable.
-Lap 3: I now refer to this lap as the "dark ages". I was hot and getting totally abused by the rocky course. Fortunately Eric found someone to adjust my fork and I am eternally grateful to the guy in the black hat (I never did find out his name).
-Lap 4: Smokin'! I felt so much better.
-Laps 5-7: Ok, just plodding along at my snail's pace. Started to walk some of the hills. Saw a couple teenage guys streak across the course (hey, it kept me awake). When I was done with #7 I realized my goal of 9 laps was in sight. So I kept going.
-Laps 8-9: Nothing special. I rode #9 quickly because I knew a nap was waiting for me back at camp.
-Naptime: I gave Eric strict orders to wake me up after an hour. Ha! After a 5 minute conversation that consisted of "wake up!" (Eric) and "go away!" (me) he gave up and let me sleep.
-Lap 10- This one almost didn't happen. I was kind of happy with my 9 laps but Eric convinced me to go out again. I was feeling a bit ragged and rode pretty slowly.
-Lap 11- Exhausted. In pain. On the verge of tears. When I started sniffling I knew this was my last lap. I pictured Tom Hanks saying "There's no crying in bike racing!". I was SO happy to be finished!!
I came in 7th out of 10 which I'm super happy about. And, I was only two measly minutes behind 5th place.
Click here for few pictures!
