Day 5: Rest stop 1

Jeff and I are at the 1st rest stop, about an hour behind the rest of the crew. It's all hills again today, but we're not doing so bad! 13 miles down, 35 to go... Jeff just said "we could do that in our sleep". Uh huh.
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Dispatch From Tent City, Night Four

I am writing in the dark, from my tent, trying to avoid the weird neighbor guy next door who keeps trying to engage me in exceedingly awkward and tricky political conversations. Tonight Andrea the Hammer and I checked out the announcements and watched the team competition like the diligent TRAM participants we are, and now I am crashing early instead of going to find the cool kids to hang out. I am tiiiiiired. I think I have already almost nodded off eleven times while writing this. I do not think I would be the life of the party right about now.

SO, I haven't blogged much because my phone keeps dying but have had an amazing time. I do not think tomorrow's ride will be easy (actually, let's get real: my legs might fall off half way up the first hill, people) but I also think that will make it much more rewarding to finish. I am hoping that adrenaline will help out tomorrow, or if not that, then I may have my Aunt Diane (our awesome support driver) funnel handfuls of Advil into my mouth at rest stops. And I am sure that Hammer and my Aunt Donna--tomorrow's riding partners--will help me get through by being the charming, thought-provoking, hill-charging, occasionally-foul-mouthed ladies they usually are. (By the way, the Aunties need more shout outs when I blog more from home. They were SO GREAT all week and I could not have done this without them.)

Alrighty, I need to sign off so I can get up at 5:15 and put on those godforsaken bike shorts one last time in the morning. Will write more when I have finally conquered TRAM and have regained my ability to think straight!

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Day 4: Hills, hills, hills

Today was maybe even worse than yesterday. Sure, it was "only" 45 miles and yesterday was 71, but to say that today was "a bit hilly" would be a wild understatement. It was hill after hill with no end in sight. Jeff is naturally a very positive person, but today he resorted to flat out LYING because there really was very little to be positive about: "this next hill looks really easy" or "this is the last hill for a while" (only if "a while" meant "for the next 30 seconds").

The final straw for me was when I was huffing and puffing up the eleventy-millionth hill right behind a woman. Halfway up she let one rip! That was actually pretty good motivation for me to "drop the hammer" as Andrea says. That means I went a little faster than 6 mph up that hill to avoid being in the direct Path of Flatulence.

I hope this doesn't give Jeff any ideas on how to motivate me to go faster.

In other news, I took a THREE hour nap this afternoon. I hope I can sleep tonight!

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Note to Self - #2

Every time you go down a hill, you're going to eventually have to come up said hill.

Stupid physics.
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Day 4 @ the starting line!

45 miles to do today, which should feel like a breeze after the 71 yesterday!

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A sea of bikes

This is the bike corral in St Peter.

I'm tired.

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Note to Self

If I ever come across a pair of WHITE bike shorts on sale, don't buy them.

Especially if said shorts look like they could become transparent once you start to sweat.
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