A Goal Reached

Well the last major preparatory ride of the year is finished. In 2 days I covered 142 miles and crossed the state of Maryland twice over. Before setting out on Thursday morning I had butterflies in my stomach. My sleep was poor quality and too short. I imagined getting a flat tire near Mt. Airy or Damascus or having some kind of run-in with a car or just having no energy left to keep pedaling. This was an ambitious goal for myself. My last significant ride was in August when I went to Baltimore; that was 2 months ago and almost 25 miles shorter than the ride I was attempting on Thursday. Nevertheless, I got up, put my cleats on and set off down the road. It's funny how starting to do something takes away a lot of the fear of doing it. Within 5 minutes of setting out I had a smile on my face and was pedaling away down Beck's Mill Road toward the Maryland state line. That's a lesson I'm learning both on a small scale and a big scale. I often find myself approaching hills on the road and thinking really intimidated kinds of thoughts like "This hill is way too big. No way I can make it to the top without a little bit of walking." But often by the time I've actually started the ascent I look upwards and the sight is so much less frightening than it was at the bottom. Sometimes I look up and it hardly looks like I'm ascending at all or I'm halfway finished with it a mere 15 seconds after starting. I think there will be many moments like this over the coming months.

Anyway, I arrived in Westminster, MD after what felt like about 45 minutes or an hour of riding and thought to myself that there's no way I was already close to getting on the main route I was taking down through Maryland (Rt. 27 to just north of Germantown). I've found that it's so easy to lose complete track of time while riding. I arrived in Mt. Airy where I was planning to eat a peanut butter and honey sandwich I packed for myself but decided to postpone that as I'm just so in the zone and hate to take a break that I really don't feel I need. So I wait until I'm just north of Damascus to pull off the road, get some more carbs to burn and take a bathroom break. At this point I was just feeling so "in the zone" it's hard to explain. I was in bicyclist heaven plowing uphill and downhill with a light wind blowing against my face.

Eventually, I reached White's Ferry to take me across the Potomac River into Virginia. At this point, I was about 30 minutes from my friends' home at this point and was jubilant that I made it to Leesburg! I didn't even mind that the last leg of the trip was on (the often congested) Rt. 15 going right into town. Fortunately for me rush hour hadn't started yet and there weren't *too* many cars headed my way. Thursday night was spent visiting with the good friends of my family and watching Sandra Bullock dodge one catastrophe after another in Gravity. Great movie if you get a chance to watch it.

Sleep was slightly less than I'm used to although the bed was very comfortable. Grabbed some cereal and milk, visited a little while longer, packed up my bags and hit the road. Friday was a *much* nicer day for riding with blue skies and warmer temperatures. Apart from this, the ride back was very similar to the ride down. There was one close call at an intersection just outside of Westminster where a lady did not see my bike as she was making a left turn. She saw me at the last second, slammed on her brakes and almost got hit by a car a few yards behind and to the left of me. Thankfully, nothing came of it and hopefully she'll be a little more vigilant in the future.

One last thing. And this is what is going to stick with me for a long time. Making the last few turns to reach home, a sensation came over me that I'd never experienced before. A sense of real accomplishment. As a matter of fact, I got a little misty-eyed. I'd made it. I had made it. I'd finished. All 142 miles. Done. And I hadn't walked at all. It was hard. It was a lofty goal. It wasn't a walk in the park. But I kept going. I'd planned it, prepared for it, started it and finished it. As I rode down Beck Mill in the opposite direction as I'd done the day before I had misty eyes but a big smile on my face. I just felt awesome. My arms were aching. My legs were burning. But I'd made it. And I just thought that if I felt like *this* after 142 miles what am I going to feel on reaching San Francisco Bay next June?

What I've been up to lately...

Well on Thursday I'm taking the (probably) last major preparatory trip before leaving next April. Here's what I've been up to since the last update:

1. Learning about bicycle maintenance. I'm not at all a mechanical guy so when I first got my Trek 2.1 (now named Fledge) I had no idea what an investment I was getting into. Especially considering I'd bought it for a measly $150. Modest estimates would bring the value of this bike up to around $2000. So for a long time I was treating it like a $150 bike. Read that "treating a Lamborghini like a Plymouth Sundance." It gradually came more and more to my attention that doing this was recklessly irresponsible and foolish. So I started taking much better care of the bike learning how and how not to treat it and what and what not to use for maintenance and cleaning.

2. A lot of short distance trips. On my ride to Baltimore, my host told me not to underestimate the preparatory value of short rides. Longer, of course, than to work and back but not so long as Baltimore. So I've been riding to Littlestown, Taneytown, Manchester, York, Abbottstown, and a few others within a 25 mile radius of my base of operations. Manchester has become one of my most common rides. I love it because of the hills on the PA side of the border but hate it because of the monotony. I have to keep reminding myself that such rides are indeed preparing me for longer and more interesting ones.

3. Winning a YouTube contest for a $423 Visa gift card! On October 8, I was on YouTube and a banner at the top had an ad from Liberty Mutual Insurance asking how I would spend $423. I typed in a brief blurb about next year's ALS awareness trip and thought nothing more of it. When I first received the email telling me I was selected as one of the winners of the contest I was incredulous. "What contest? I never entered a contest! Oh wait... I'm remembering something." So I'm now perusing tents, cooking gear, sleeping bags and the like. Still can hardly believe I won a contest!

So that's about it! I'll post a new blog entry next weekend after my 70 mile trip to Leesburg, VA where I grew up!