Tour De Friends 2003 - Day 3
Richmond to Bealton, 100 Miles - Theme: Pain
After the best night sleep in my life (go figure), we woke up at 5:30, got ready, packed, and ate breakfast. Appropriately, the theme of the day was pain. After riding almost 200 miles in 2 days, we were feeling it.
After breakfast, I coordinated a "Wish List" jersey picture of all riders wearing it for the people who created the jersey. Pictures taken, we hobbled to the bikes and set out for day 3. Arriving at every pit was such a joyful occasion and leaving was always difficult knowing we had to get on the bikes again.
At one of the pits, I saw Mickey Ballotta, Executive Director of the Tour. I got to tell her how much I appreciated what she was doing, how fantastic I thought the ride was, and how much I was enjoying myself.
Day 3 was the day of the many railroad crossings. At one of the first ones, the lights started blinking, the barriers started lowering, and Troy and I rushed through to the other side before a train came rushing through. Whew - that was close!
Before lunch, I realized that I recognized the route - I had biked with a friend from DC to Williamsburg a couple of years ago and the route we were on was taking me on the same path, but in the opposite direction. Jenn - we went through Fredericksburg and I recognized it from our trip!.
There was a huge hill prior to lunch through the Fredericksburg Battlefield. At the top, my friend Bonnie saw me and cheered me on - that gave me the strength to get up the hill. Then right before lunch we saw Mark's parents. We stopped to say hi and rest for a minute. Then on to lunch, but not before the SHORT, EXTREMELY STEEP hill into the lunch stop. Luckily the crew warned us and we were able to downshift in time. Another friend Evan saw me pulling in and cheered me so that I was able to make it up.
The temperature dropped and rain came down during lunch. I borrowed a jacket from a friend who couldn't finish the day, but ended up not needing it since the rain ended by the time we left lunch. There was another short, steep hill after lunch.
There were quite a headwind the second half of the day, which was difficult. To take our minds off the wind, Will requested a song so I did a 1-armed version of YMCA. When we pulled into pit 5 (Amy, Kate, and Akiko's pit), we were hurting. So we set up a massage line - everyone sat in a line and massaged the person in front of them's shoulders. We got alot of praise for that! At this point there were only 4 miles left to camp so we cruised in to camp.
Mark and my odometers were only 1 mile short of a century so being as insane as we are, we rode around the parking lot until we reached 100! The camp was flooded out so we camped indoors again at a high school. We unpacked and ate. I got a massage. I heard the evening entertainment was Karaoke and people were wondering where I was, but it was cold and I wanted to be inside.
As we all hung out in the gym before bed, Christina comes in glowing! We had been seeing her at pits all day. At first, she was very discouraged - in pain and not sure she could complete the day. As the day wore on and we kept seeing her, we tried to convince her she could do it - mind over matter. So seeing her come in and hearing that she completed the entire day was the best news ever! Congratulations again Christina - you are a super star!
The worst part of the day - I ran out of memory in my digital camera about halfway through the day. Sigh.