The Next Challenge

The next far-fetched challenge I am going to face is running the Virginia Ten Miler. BAHAHA! This is going to be straight CRAZY.

http://www.virginiatenmiler.com/
Hopefully I'll be living in Virginia come next September and then running the 10 Miler will actually be a possibility. My dad MIGHT run it with me but as mentioned before he has bad feet (hence the cycling) so we'll see. But to start it off I will be running my first ever 5k on Thanksgiving with my beautiful cousin, Darcy and her inspiring mother, Jill. I only run 2 miles on a treadmill inside, while being properly hydrated and watching a movie and being under a fan. So we'll see what happens in a MONTH!

Am I scared? Oh yea.

Long Overdue or just Long

Welp, here's the rest of the ride!! Not nearly as eventful as day one, but worth blogging about.

DAY TWOWe started there in Lexington, in front of some old church that has some historical significance involving Stonewall Jackson and the South (of course) but I was pretty anxious to get going so I posed for exactly one picture and took off.


After many hours, many stops, and many drinks of water, we finally reached the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains! It was an uphill 4 mile climb! We raced a semi for a while, but we let him win.


seeing that bridge was one of the happiest moments of my life. bridge = mountains OVER!
(You see that sparkle on my arms? No, I'm not a vampire, I'm just drenched in sweat!)


We entered Amherst County and a beautiful (and terrifying) downhill coast resulting in speeds of over 40 miles an hour and a lot of overactive tear ducts.


We only did about 35 miles on day two, but, c'mon people! We climbed the Blue Ridge Mountains! We ended here at this precious little restaurant where the service is slow but the food is good. Also, the AC was working.


DAY THREE

We started again from the front of the little Diner. (please note the farmer's tan my dad is totally rocking and the horrid mesh wife-beater he is definitely not.)


We made it to Scottsville (our halfway mark!) in good time.


So we HAD to eat at Lumpkin's. Because, how many people can say that they have?


and we made it as far as Kent's Store before calling it a day. A really REALLY long day. A day I'd like to measure in units of distance. Miles, specifically. How about 84.

DAY FOUR


We didn't get an ending of day three picture, but we did get a beginning of day four picture.


we even found a friend


Mom is the greatest for driving around, looking up directions, providing us with water and food, and basically being the best ever.


We even got a little piece of the Carters in there!



We finished the day about 100 feet from where this picture was taken. But THAT picture was so horribly atrocious, I refused to put it on here. And that's saying something if you look at the ones I've let through!

DAY FIVE (THE END!!!)


we made it to Deltaville after more than 60 miles of boring, flat, uncovered road.


Turns out, however, that the ocean was still another 10 miles away. uggh.



But we finally made it! We sorta kinda crashed some girls' party but I don't think they minded. The feeling of the water and the sand and the relief all mixed together made the trip worth it.

I'm not going to do it again anytime soon and I definitely won't be riding in August anymore, but I can now say,

"I have ridden my bike across the state of Virginia. How do you like me now?!"

68 Miles down, 232 to go

I'm alive. Barely.

We have completed the first 68 miles and, let me tell you, it was NOT a fun 68 miles. Actually, I don't want to be unfair so the first 40 miles were great.

We started in West Virginia...


And rode a whopping 100ft to the Virginia sign just to cover our bases.


The beginning was easy. Besides the fact that it was 30 degrees colder than it has been all summer and we were cruising along at 35mph with a wind chill of freezing, it was quite enjoyable. Mom rode ahead and met us in Covington, 20 miles later.

We then hit our first hill of the ride. And we OWNED it. Don't worry. About mile 40 we met up with our awesome sag wagon driver for lunch.


We made some mistakes.

Mistake one: riding on Main street. I got a flat tire! Luckily, I was carrying a spare and Dad is very good at fixing flats, apparently a lot of practice...

Mistake two: stopping for lunch. Bad Idea. We were feeling those sandwiches for the rest of the ride.

Mistake three: Asking the guy at the gas station what the best way was to get to Lexington.

Mistake four: Trusting dad to trust the guy at the gas station.

"Take this road here. You'll go a ways and then it turns into dirt and you go up a hill. Then about halfway back down it's paved and you can just coast into Lexington."

This man had OBVIOUSLY never ridden a bike in his life. This "hill" that he spoke of was a gravel mountain. That's not even an exaggeration. We were climbing a mountain.

Mom was waiting for us ahead and an hour and a half later, I fell. Of course I fell. I was going about .2mph so it didn't hurt, but it was enough to reset the odometer and cause me to hyperventilate and cry. I don't know which came first or if one caused the other but I was NOT having fun. Once I fell off there was no getting started again. It was too steep and the gravel was too loose. Every time I pedaled, the back tire would spin around once before making contact and pushing me forward. It wasn't worth it. I dismounted and walked. Dad walked a bit but his arthritis in his foot made it so that he HAD to ride, he couldn't walk. Turns out the mountain was four miles. FOUR miles!!!!!!! I rode about half, walked almost the rest, then (ashamedly) rode 3/10 of a mile to the top with Mom in the car.

I couldn't ride down it either (Remember THIS?) So I rode down the two miles to the point where it was paved again, only stopping to take some amazing pictures. I didn't appreciate the view then (Oh, that's a fake smile) but I do now.


Oh, and that's blood on my leg. gross.


We rode the last 12-15 miles to Lexington and we went home.

I was tired, but I was alright, just sore. Then out of nowhere, a couple hours after we got home and I had showered and situated myself comfortably on the couch, my stomach decided to get angry. So angry that the day ended here:

Lynchburg Genral Hospital Emergency Room, every ounce of Gaterade and Oatmeal cookie absent from my body.

We're still not sure what it was. Possibly a negative reaction to the Gaterade. I'm fine, thank you for your concern, but yes, it is horribly embarrassing.
Not a fun way to get my morphine fix.
Hopefully Thursday will be more fun...

Here. We. Go.

I have been blog neglecting. I admit it. But you should know me well enough by now to expect nothing less.

This is it, the final push. Tomorrow, Thursday, is the last ride we'll take before we start the actual route. We've decided to split it up just a tad. This Saturday we'll go out and start it, then due to my dad's church and work responsibilities, we'll return to church and work until Thursday-next when we will in earnest pick up where we left off Saturday and ride until we reach ocean, hopefully the Atlantic.

It'll be hard.
It'll be hot.
It'll be a challenge.
It'll be torture listening to my dad sing bluegrass songs while panting uphill.

But I think we can do it.

Tuesday morning we did a 20 mile ride before work and it felt fine. We've done the 30 mile ride to Sedalia at least twice and the more than 20 mile ride to Cifax half a dozen times. Sure, none of that is 50 or 60 miles, but I think we can actually pull this off.

huh. Who'da thunk?

Epic

Guess who cycled 30 miles on Saturday! Oh yea, that would be me and my dad.

Own it!

Also, It's been rainy here the past few days, but expect another lengthy ride update after my weekend at the beach! (woot woot)

I Fell...

...more like I slid then flailed a bit before rolling and crashing.

Remember back at the VERY beginning of the blog when I had nightmares about losing control down a hill? No? It's here. And now it's come true. After riding almost 17 miles in the 95 degree heat today, I was feeling it. My legs were tired, there never seemed to be enough water (though I am eternally grateful to the good people at North Baptist Church on Coffee Road for providing us with a pump for water bottle refilling), and the sun was relentless. We were coming down the home-stretch, I knew exactly how many turns we had left (3) and how many hills (1) before reaching the air-conditioned car.

Suddenly, I was gaining speed. Was it dangerous? yes. Did I kind of like it? yes. Was I also so tired that I was losing control of my body and, by default, the bike? yea, maybe a little. The turn was ahead of me and it was sharp. I put on my brakes but a bit too late. The gravel (that is seriously out of nowhere seeing as the rest of the ENTIRE ROAD is perfectly paved... grrr) began flying behind and to either side of my tire and I felt the handlebars give a little pull. I leaned into it, owning the speed, tears of triumph, pain, speed, and trying to get the dirt out of my eyes, were streaming down my cheek. The tire gave. It slid to the right as my body flew to the left. My feet snapped out of the pedals causing the bike to fly off the road. I slammed my knee into the dusty gravel and continued to roll a few times down the hill. Once gravity had finished, my dad come rolling up behind me, blaming the gravel and the tight turn instead of my stupidity and need for speed. He figured my knee, shoulder, and pride had been wounded enough for the time being. After a few (yes, a VERY few) tears and a nice water-bottle squirt to the bloody knee, we finished our ride a little more humble than we had begun it, and a little more slowly.

What's the worst part? The fall restarted the speedometer so I don't even know if we made it to 20 miles today!



My knee after thorough (and painful) cleaning.

Intermission

I accidentally/ purposefully took a nice little two-week hiatus from the cycling. I was in a play, I was switching jobs, my dad was out of town, etc. etc.

Excuses!!!

No more.

We are back and better than ever, like Divo's new album. OK, bad example.

On Monday we did our old stand-by: River Road.
I refuse to ride River Road again and I will tell you why.
1 - Too easy! We're so beyond that now. I think the whole thing is only 12 miles. And on the way back I was SAILING!
2 - Bugs. Remember in the Old Testament when God gets angry and sends bugs to prove to Pharaoh that he's God? Yea, they are all in my mouth. I guess that's what happens in the humidity that is Virginia in the late afternoon whilst cycling next to a river. (The name "River Road" is surprisingly accurate).
3 - Rednecks. I'm sorry if you live on River Road and are reading this. Who am I kidding, you're probably too drunk to make sense of the letters. I find myself feeling self-conscious as I rode past the scantily-clad men and their beer guzzling women. Maybe that's why I did the ride so fast.

Then tonight we rode 20 miles! It was beautiful. Amazing scenery, weather more akin to a cool April evening, and only one near-death encounter with a deer. The going was a little slow, but I felt great! We got to ten miles and I felt as though I could keep going. It was getting dark, though, and we both had calculus waiting for us at home (I'm taking an independent study class and my dad is teaching a course at VMI, but it was actually my homework that was waiting for him). We called it a night and then I got a short but vehement lecture from my friend about my lack of blogging.

So I'm back and full of every intention to continue blogging. If my past is any indication of the regularity you will enjoy, then I'm sorry. But, hey! Maybe I'll surprise you, like I was surprised when the speedometer on my bike magically worked today: unexpected, but a lovely addition to the ride.

ps- leave comments because I'm pretty sure only my mom is reading this and if that's true, I can just tell her all this in person.