Mission Accomplished

Last year Bryan and one of our BFF's Dave Looby rode the ACS bike-a-thon. When I went to pick them up at the finish I said that I would be doing it as well in 2012. After several false starts and much procrastination I started to do some real training in the Spring. And by training I mean being dragged around the greater Philadelphia area by Bryan, complaining all the while. As seen here:

Don't I look super happy in all of these flattering pictures?! You should have seen me after I accidentally ran over a chipmunk. And a certain rider behind me *ahem, Chris Fox I am looking at you* didn't have the sympathy to put the poor thing out of its misery. Oy, the guilt! Where was I going with this. . .

So I trained, and I rode many many miles, I climbed as few hills as was humanly possible, and I learned all about dehydration. We are just finishing up our second heat wave of the summer, this one lasting
10 + days.

In June I was up to doing rides of 50 miles. I felt confident enough to register for the ACS ride that Bryan told me would be 60 miles. Guess what, Lying McLiar-Pants, it is 65 miles. But I was signed up and doing it.

A week before the ride I got nervous. I was going to be left by the side of the road for dead. There was no way I could ride this far in the heat. Maybe it would rain and I wouldn't have to go. What if it rained and I had to ride anyway? This all was a terrible idea.

Yesterday, I got up at the ass-crack of dawn and put on all of my gear, got on my bike and left the house at 6:30 in the a.m. Then I rode 66.34 miles.
 

Many thanks to; Bryan for pushing me and making sure I really was ready, my Mom for inspiring me not just to do this but in roughly one million ways, Looby for being behind me pretty much the whole way and also downwind of my ranting, to the always incredible Miss Molly for driving to jabib and picking up our tired selves, and of course to Leah for not going into labor while I was off doing this.

*h