LRRH News Feed

[jobob]

Random thoughts while the morning coffee kicks in.

TH, I love the photos you posted. I'm glad we have a picture of the whole group before we went off on our merry ways. And the look of joy (and relief!!) on our faces at the end says it all.

It was so fun riding into the finish with Trekhawk and CindySue. Bubba as well as Trekhawk's husband and her three adorable little boys were there at the side of the road cheering us on. TH's boys were too funny. One of them took off at a run and followed his mom to the tent, and the other two and dad caught up momentarily. They were soooo cute.

I overheard snippets of conversation among TH and her boys at breakfast earlier that morning and the words of encouragement they were offering her made me crack up. Can't remember verbatim but one of them said something about coming out to get her and towing her back with a a bungie cord if she needed it.

The AV jerseys really stood out. Although the six of us (me, Trekhawk, CindySue, aka_kim, SK and yellow) managed to ride together a great deal, more often than not the other four would soon be way ahead of me & Trekhawk. Which was fine, TH and I were very happy going at our own pace and she was great company. Then we'd round a bend and waaaay off in the distance we'd see a bunch of bright red jerseys, with the distinctive green off-center chainring logo, standing off to the side of the road. Yep, must be another flat! So TH and I would like to thank the rest of you for having flats at strategic locations so you never got very far ahead of us

There was a nice breeze to keep us cool, which was great since I was worried it would be awfully hot - which it wasn't. The breeze did pick up some as the day progressed, but it looked like we'd have a nice tailwind for the ride back.

So when we did the 90 degree turn at mile ~ 75 which pointed us back towards the start, we had a lovely tailwind and we were cruising along at 18-20 mph with almost no effort. "Sweeeet!" I thought. "We'll be finished in way under 2 hours, and fresh as a daisy!". Silly me. About 5 miles later the wind did an abrupt about-face and we suddenly found ourselves riding into a headwind. Trekhawk mentioned something about learning things from me but she neglected to mention much of it was new swear words. The headwind wasn't that bad, and ordinarily the hills in the last 20 miles would not have been much effort at all, but truth be told I was getting tired. Many thanks to TH and CindySue for the words of encouragement and the occasional windblock!

Funny moment: We're chugging along and a gust picks up. CindySue's clear, lovely voice rings out "AGAIN WITH THE HEADWIND?!?!" It was hilarious.

What a great weekend.