Miles this week: 271; Miles to date: 1531
Weekday Commuting
Not much to note here - I did my typical weekday commuting to and from work with not notable
or remarkable happenings. Didn't see much sun, which was disappointing.
Saturday - Gainsville
What a surprising day - typical to most of our training weekends thus far, Saturday started out
overcast with the threat of rain. Brave souls showed up to the Gainsville ride and braved the
downpour during the safety speech. But much to our shock, the
skies cleared and we saw some sun!
The roads dried out and we took off layers. Unfortunately, right around this point,
Mark gets a flat that is irreplaceable. His tire is shot and he needs to
bow out of the riding for the day. Good sport that he is, he provides moral support from the sweep car!
When we hit pit one, everyone laughed as Ron discovered a stow-away.
And it turns out Will and I have jersey karma again as we pose for our
Wish List jersey commemorative photo. I think everyone was a bit giddy
due to the sun's rare appearance. Lots of laughing and smiling going
around!
We head off from the first pit and meander our way through the towns. I took a couple of pictures while
on my bike - not the safest thing, but I would have missed the moments if I had gotten off. Anyway,
here's a picture of my typical view while cycling and another
of the gang climbing a hill. It was a great day for cycling
and the views were fantastic.
We rolled into pit 3 and took a break for snacks. Scott (kneeling in the
foreground) brought poundcake - yum! This ride was peppered with train tracks and we are unlucky as
we get caught behind a train at one of them. After the train tracks,
we get caught behind a tractor driven by a very cute driver. We play tag a bit and then finally pass him
for good. We zoom to the parking lot and take a team photo before calling it a day.
Sunday - Davidsonville Century of Doom
Even though we rode Davidsonville last weekend, we decide to ride it again and to do the century option, which is
100 miles in one day. It was cold and I wasn't prepared so a very nice rider Bonnie
lent me an extra jacket she had, which just about saved me since it never really warmed up. The route was mostly
the same as last weekend's except for the last 20 miles, which were killers. So we stopped at the same
first pit and I took a shot of everyone there. This time the store was
opened, as was the infamous fry stand where we stretched
and joked around til we decided to leave.
It was a very rigorous day and surprisingly, only one flat. We decided to skip the pie shop again since it
was about 3:30p by the time we would have gotten there and all the pie would have been gone. But I did introduce
Tria to the joys of Bit O' Honey!
The last 20 miles of the ride were particularly difficult. There were many uphills and we were
exhausted from all the riding. We cursed the ride lead for putting all the hills at the end
but we got through it. The most discouraging part was being at the last pit stop and realizing we
still had almost 20 miles to go! Because of the time and the weather, alot of people cut short
the century to 80 or 90 miles, but we had 6 intrepid riders
complete the entire thing, and it should come as no surprise that they were all members of Team
Agrodolce! We finished at around 6pm and wearily drove home.
It was a rough weekend and I felt the effects of it - particularly Sunday night and Monday when I
realized I drank too much Gatorade and didn't eat enough food because I got really sick. Suffice it
to say, I've learned my lesson. Hope you all had a good weekend and I'll write again soon.
Rachael
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