A Tough Few Days

The past few days have been very challenging for me. It started on Tuesday when we had a 113 mile daer was quite warm and humid that day but the terrain was downhililwind most of the day. We should have known better, but Team Turtle couldn't resist the favorable conitions and we rode our best time yet as a team. I actually told Crist to speed up at one point! I forgot my water bottles at a SAG stop and Bud had to go back in the van and pick them up and bring them to us on the route. This incident combined with me urging Crist to go faster has earned me my new nickname of "Throttle Bottle".

All good things must come to an end and Wednesday morning started with a 12% climb two blocks from the hotel. No warming up for that one! The day was extremely humid with an ever increasing headwind. We had 100 miles and the terrain was all steep rollers. By mile 76 I was done and ready to SAG. I told Crist and Diane that the next van we saw for water, I was going to SAG. They urged me to continue and slowly we pressed on as the thunder clouds were building and the storms were looming. At mile 86 we saw a van but by that point I felt like I couldn't SAG because Crist and Diane had gone so slow to pull me along and that would be disrespectful of their kindness. I pressed on and finished the ride but at the end, I was physically and mentally spent.

This morning at breakfast, I had a mental meltdown and started to cry. I was still tired from the high mileage of the past few days and I started thinking about the rest of the teip and how hard each day is and I just got overwhelmed. The Team told me to hang in there and take it one step at a time.

So mentally I broke the whole day down ino tiny pieces and just concentrated on completing each piece. I let the Turtles go on ahead and rode most of the day with a new guy named Dave who rides a recumbant bike which climbs almost as slow as me. I find that when a day had lotsnof climbing, I am more relaxed if I am not trying to keep up with the Turtles.