We had an awesome time at the Hilly! I very much missed not having Mary there and do hope that she will be there next year.
Day one, I was in a hurry to get going and get through stops so I could try for the second loop. Loop one was so much easier than last year. Was it the new bike, the new wheels, or the better trained engine?
I unintentionally dropped Mr. and worked with a guy who was going my speed. I never got his name. Finished the last 20 miles with him though.
I got some ice cream and went about recruiting an unsuspecting rider for a second loop. I finally twisted someone's arm into doing it, but lost some time there. So I knew that we were going to be cutting it close with sags closing.
I had to slow down a bit for him too, as he hadn't ridden much lately. We came across a young girl (15 yo) who had crashed. her dad was with her and a couple of other men, but she was pretty banged up. Probably broken collar bone(s) arm and or wrist. I stopped and played the Mom role and tried to distract her until the EMT's got there. Then moved on.
We got to the next stop just after all had closed, except the Schwan's ice cream truck
We raided that and then went to the tent where it appeared that just a bit of food was left. There was a lady there and I assumed that she was a volunteer, but when I approached to beg for food, I saw that another man was talking to her and that she was the mother of the girl. He told her that her daughter had crashed and said that I had been with her, I gave her a report and told her that I thought that her daughter was good but would have broken bones and probably stay overnight in the hospital. The food that was out was the lunch that she had prepared for her husband and daughter before the sag had closed down and she was saving it for them.
She had three plates set out with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, bananas and water. She said that we could have it and went to the sag to see if they could get her back to the family. We devoured the poor family's food like vultures. It somehow seemed wrong to eat their food, but couldn't let it go to waste....right?
Anyway, the deal that I made with Mr. was that if I rode the loop twice, I had to commute back to Bloomington. In other words....if you do that, you are on your own
And the loop is only 48 so after finishing the first, I only had 96. So I headed back to Bloomington. I got back to the condo at 109.27. So I rounded the block to get an even 110 miles for the day. I had 16.4 after the first loop and 14.8 after the second loop adventure.
I didn't get to ride with Jeni and friends on Saturday but made up for that on Sunday.
"Being retired from Biking...isn't that kinda like being retired from recess?" Stephen Colbert asked of Lance Armstrong