Our motel in Chickasha OK last night had an indoor pool. Half the rooms were inside and organized around the pool; the other half were on the outside of the motel facing the parking lot. The pool had a jacuzzi, picnic area and ping pong table. In addition to us cyclists, the motel was housing about a dozen little league baseball teams that had come to Chickasha to play in a tournament. That meant that the pool, jacuzzi, picnic area and halls were full of about a hundred 8-12 year-olds having a great time. My room overlooked the pool. The kids were really good, but kids are kids - and they were a little loud. I was tired, and the sounds of all those kids playing was actually soothing. It sounded like I was on vacation. All that laughter made me so relaxed. I went to sleep about 9pm - a full hour before the pool closed.
We are all getting a little brain dead from these long days. Our breakfast was the usual self-serve variety; but you needed to ask the waitress for milk. Per, from Denmark, came in a little late. He came to our table, looked down at my cereal and said, "You found the... cow?". I looked down at my cereal, then up at Per and said, "You mean you want the cow juice?" "Yes, yes. The cow juice." So I handed him my container of milk, which will henceforth be known in my family as "cow juice".
Today's ride started out on the cool side, but the skies were clear. We left the motel as one big group. No one got an early start. It was Sunday morning and we were traveling out of town sort of through an industrial park. Four lanes of no traffic. We weren't biking as a paceline. Instead, for the first time we were biking as a peleton - just one big group. It was great. I was in the middle, and the people to my left and right were so close that I could reach over and change their gears. "You're going a bit too fast. Let's downshift you."
About two miles into the ride, David sprints away. No one answers. As far as I know, that's the last anyone saw of David all day. I spent all day yesterday with him, and it left me exhausted. Where did all of that energy come from? Maybe being super athletic and 20 years younger had something to do with it.
The fast group picks up speed. I'm chatting with Jay, and it quickly gets to a point where I need to make a choice. Keep talking or breathe. Survival instincts take over, and I shut up. The pace is very fast, and then we hit the hills. Each climb leaves me anaerobic. I last for the first 8 miles, then the group slowly pulls away. We are travelling over long, rolling hills, and I can continue to see the group for about an hour. But there is no way to catch them. I continue to try. I am biking like I'm on an 18 mile training ride - not an 146 mile painfest. I decide on another tactic: short SAG stops.
At each SAG, I wolf down food, fill my water bottles and leave with some of the faster riders. Inevitably, I will get dropped - but it helps me keep my pace up. I know that at any time there are at least four riders behind me, and I want to stay in front of them.
After lunch, Randy misses a turn. He realizes his mistake after a few miles and gets on the correct road. He sneaks up behind me and reaches over to give me a push up the hill. Instead, he gooses me and I shoot straight up. Guess you had to be there. We continue to bike together on some gorgeous, empty country roads. The road surface isn't great, but the views and company are. You could be anywhere in the southeast. It is sunny, warm and green. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere. Another one of those days I envisioned when I decided I wanted to bike across the country.
We finally get on a highway. For the most part, the Oklahoma roads we've been biking have no shoulder. You're biking on the white line. But we find ourselves on a beautiful wide and smoothly paved shoulder, and Randy offers to pace me into the final SAG. He asks how fast I'd like to go. I say about 20 - 21mph. We bike at that pace for a while. Like six seconds. Then Randy's natural tendencies take over and we're blasting down the highway at 32mph. I keep up until my route sheet flys off my handlebars (where it is clipped). I brake to get it... there are a ton of turns in the final ten miles that get us to the hotel. By the time I stop, the route sheet is a quarter of a mile back up the road. My bike goes east. Occassionally, it goes north or south. But my bike never, ever goes west. We've been west and don't need to go back. I figure I can make it to the final SAG and get a new route sheet there.
On the last leg from the final SAG to the hotel, I hit a rock while going down a steep hill and blow out my rear tire. I have the wheel off the bike and the tire off the wheel when Mike and Karen pull up. My new wheel has a ding that we will have to straighten out later. The tire has a small tear, but I can make it to the hotel. The tube is toast, of course. Bummer about the new tire - they cost as much as a car tire. Again, not a cheap sport.
Mike and Karen pull off after a while, and I continue biking towards the hotel when I see Wolfgang on the side of the road changing a tire. He had two wires in his tire. In the last two weeks, I think he has had at least ten flats. Wolfgang is one of my favorite riders; just an absolute workhorse. I stop to make sure all is OK. He is about finished with the tire change, and then Mike and Karen pull up. The four of us bike the final eight miles to the hotel, which is great because we don't need to consult our route sheets.
I finish the ride right at nine hours; that's nine hours in the saddle. It was was more time out on the road due to SAGS and the flat. We had battled a pesky headwind for most of the day. Sometimes it increased to "annoying", but never "soul crushing". We had about 5000 feet of climbing, mainly in the form of these long rollers. If they had been a little closer together, I could have used the speed coming down one to help get up the next. But they were spaced too far apart.
I have developed a soreness in my right calf, which is good for two reasons. First, it takes my mind off the pain in my left thigh. Second, it means that I'm spinning more. To be a really good cyclist, you need to pedal at a relatively high cadence (rpm). When you do that, you bring your calf muscles more into play. If you've ever been to a spinning class, you probably know what I mean. If it didn't happen to you, then you probably saw some newbie jump off the bike after fifteen minutes, grabbing a calf and screaming.
Today was hard. All the days are hard, but this was really long. But I'm getting stronger and mentally tougher. There's not a day that I don't think I could finish. I was beat at the end of today's ride, but I could have continued if it was necessary. Tonight we're at a really nice Holiday Inn Express. The room is new, modern and huge. I don't want to leave it. We have a "normal" day tomorrow, and then it is our rest day.
As a final note, I hope all the family in Tennessee is dry and safe. That storm system in front of us is flooding that area pretty bad.
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