UPDATE:

I (more or less) finished! The day was absolutely brutal though. After a mild summer, it was the hottest day of the year -- 95 and humid. A long stretch coming up to the mile 50 rest stop was exposed and riders were being sagged left and right. They added some new climbs on this year's route in the first half too -- a couple short and very very steep sections. Half the riders I saw walked one of the hills -- I zigzagged it but was suffering.

Around mile 64 we pulled off to a grocery store to wait out a storm, but its good that we did because if we had continued on we would have been forced to take the bail out -- for a bit they were sending everyone that way due to the storm. A lot of other riders were bailing because they were just plain done. By the time we hit the bail out the storm was in Thurmont so the volunteers let us continue on. That was the hardest part though...knowing that we would be more or less alone for the rest of the ride and still having 40 miles to go. THANK GOD the climbing was mostly over at that point, and the storm did cool things down.

On the last 10 miles coming in, we were racing another storm. Winds were buffering us all over the place and it started raining again (and man did it hurt when my shorts soaked through and the wet touched my poor chafed behind). With just about 3 miles left to go - at mileage 103, this century was actually 106 miles - I made us pull off and hide in a shed because lightning was hitting way too close to us. While we were in the shed there was actually an electrical current or lightning strike (?) that made a pfzzz noise and jumped from one lightpole to another, directly in front of us. At that point I called my husband to update him -- he had been spending the whole day volunteering so he could see us off -- and he insisted on coming to pick us up because he had been worried sick about us. But I definitely COULD HAVE done another 3 miles, obviously, so I'm still gonna count this one as completed.

Honestly can't believe we made it though, especially with the number of stronger riders getting sagged and bailing. It was ten times harder than I thought it would be and I can't really say it was fun at all, and WORST of all I missed the ice cream!!!!! But I've never been so proud of myself. That was hands down the most physically and mentally challenging day of my life and I kept going when I didn't think I could.