A Disappointment Few Can Understand

I took off work on Friday and then again today. The purpose was to go up to Michigan and ride in the National 24-hour challenge, a bike race that lasts an entire day. Your place is determined by the total number of miles you complete. Each rider starts at 8:00 AM Saturday on the 122 mile loop, when that is completed they shift to the 23 mile loop and do that as many times as he/she can until 7:15 PM. Finally each rider tries to do the 7.5 mile loop as many times as possible until 8 AM Sunday.

The weather forecast was favoralble with a high around 82 (last year was in the low 90's), and clear. I had a mechanical problem just after the first checkpoint (my whole crank arm came loose and was still clipped to my foot (hilarious afterward)), but I did my best to catch up to the group I had been riding with. This caused me to overexert myself and once I caught them I just dropped off the back of the pack once again. At mile 90 I had hit a wall and was in serious need of some protien and carbs when I noticed a couple of riders stopped at a store on the side of the road. I needed the break and it just so happened that this was the general store of one of those blink-and-you-miss-it towns and they had pizza in the warmer. Best piece of pizza in a long time. A half-hour of eating and letting the food digest was just the ticket. I let a woman training for the Ironman pull me to the end of the first loop and I was feeling pretty good. I took another snack break before starting the middle loop. This loop is pretty hilly so I started slow, but soon found a good strategy to deal with them. Finished in good time with that loop and took another snack break before doing another middle loop. Perfected the strategy from the last loop and managed to do one uphill while averaging over 25 mph. Finished that loop while the sun was setting. Time to throw the light on the bike and get ready for the quick, flat night loops. In the meantime a severe weather advisory had come up and riders were told to ride with discretion. The wind all of the sudden kicked up and the tent which I was using as my base camp (and that I had planned to use for Sea to Sea) got blown apart. I heard later that the wind was 30 mph sustained with 60 mph gusts. The poles of my tent bent and poked through the rain fly. Franticly pulled everything out of the tent and loaded it into the car then took down the fractured pieces of my tent. I then went into the Middle school where the event was being hosted to get the forecast. Scattered showers predicted all night with a rapid temperature drop. I hadn't packed the right gear for riding in these conditions, so I wasn't about to go out there any time soon. I was tired, but my heart-rate was still elevated so I couldn't fall asleep right away. I had set a goal of 300 miles for this race and I was sitting on 169.6. I made a disappointing decision to pack it up at that point. I woke up around 7:00 AM and was able to do one loop, but 177.1 is just no consolation for a goal of 300. I ended up taking 2nd in my age category because only one other person in that category had braved the weather, but I almost felt embarassed accepting it. Last year I had taken 3rd for riding 221.6. I know it's a hard story to relate to, but for how long I had been looking forward to this race it's a big disappointment.

When I got home today my mom told me that Amtrak has shut down service to some areas due to flooding. So now I might need a new tent and new transportation to Seattle.

All this with just one week before I am supposed to leave.