I was out of commission most of last week because I chaperoned my daughter’s class field trip–3 days, 2 nights with 21 4th and 5th graders.  They were fabulous, but it took me all weekend to recover.  So I’m going out for a ride now, but thought I should send out the next chapter in my 2003 saga.   This is what I wrote when I finished the second qualifier for the 2003 running of PBP.

My Second Brevet – 195 miles is a long way.  I rode my second brevet, 300k, on May 3rd.  And a bit on May 4th, as well.  It was a really, really long day. We followed the same route that we had for the 200k, riding about 30 more miles out beyond Siler City, to turn around at Seagrove, the halfway point. The morning was beautiful-perfect riding weather. I felt great-no lingering illnesses, no problems with my cleats, and lots of fun new gear on my bike to keep me entertained. I’ve added a handlebar bag, a back rack with a bag, a special front wheel with a generator in the hub, and lots of lights.  Riding it fully loaded, I look like a very strange explorer-an odd hybrid of high and low tech.  I spent a good portion of the morning just getting used to balancing with so much extra weight in new places. Beyond Siler City the scenery was spectacular. The road flowed over constant rolling hills (when I finally got to bed, much, much later, I had a bit of vertigo trouble every time I closed my eyes), with beautiful views of bucolic spring countryside.  There were only 25 or 30 of us this time, so I rode off and on with various of the 6 or 8 folks who made up the back of the pack.  Mostly, we were a group of four-me and three very gallant guys.  They let me have the bushes first at the gas station that has no bathroom.  Actually, I’ve discovered that I love engaging in activities that are mostly populated by men.  On these rides, when we stop at a store or gas station that does have a bathroom (is it legal for these places not to have one?!), I’ll pass by two or three of the guys using up precious rest time standing in line to get into the men’s room.  I just breeze by into the empty women’s-I love it!

There was quite a lot of climbing, throughout the day, but I still felt strong when we got to the last control at about 130 miles.  I’m not sure of the exact mileage; my computer was dying, so all I had was my odometer total.  But I know that we had 60 or so miles to go when we got back to Siler City. While we were hanging out at the Pantry debating what to do about dinner, it started raining. So we ducked into the local cafeteria, and had a lingering (although not exactly gourmet) meal-really, we were just shoveling in calories at that point.  Finally, at about 7:15, three of us decided we just couldn’t wait any longer, and headed out to brave the storm.  Remember the Saturday night all those tornadoes hit in Missouri. It was the front edge of that system, I think. Things went downhill from there.

First off, lightning is really dangerous. And riding along on top of a metal bike in the middle of a lightning storm is really scary. The two guys I was with seemed not to be bothered by it, but I nearly had a nervous breakdown. I kept thinking of my two little children (okay, they’re not exactly babies-nine and six-but they still need their mother!) and wanting desperately to find some kind of shelter. But I also desperately wanted to be finished-I was starting to get tired, and it was raining and the temperature was dropping. So I just kept pedaling and panicking, certain I was going to die a horribly painful death at any moment. One or the other of the guys would note a flash, then count until the rumble of thunder, and announce that it was a mile off or so. This did not help my mental state.  This went on for several hours.  No exaggeration. It rained for a long time-I was never sure if it was actually coming down at any given moment, because my glasses were streaked with water for so long that it just ceased to matter. My jacket serves pretty well in the rain, but my feet were soaked and freezing. (Note to self:  buy waterproof booties!)
 
In Snow Camp, we stopped at our usual watering hole (a very cycle-friendly little country store), and a well-meaning father came running out with his son to tell us that there was a tornado on the ground in Denton(where exactly is Denton again?), and that we couldn’t keep riding, especially if we were headed toward Chapel Hill. Morrisville isn’t quite the same direction as Chapel Hill, is it? I didn’t even bother getting all the way off my bike, and I yelled at the guys to hurry it up. We were back on the road in about 5 minutes.

Then it got dark. Well. At least I wouldn’t be able to see the funnel cloud long before it swept us away. It kept raining and lightning, of course. But riding in the dark in the middle of nowhere when you’re utterly exhausted (having blown through a lifetime-worth of adrenalin because of your very healthy fear of lightning) is a whole new ballgame. Did you know that it gets really dark in rural Chatham County when there’s no moon and total cloud cover? And there are no street lights. I’m pretty certain it was the darkest dark I’ve ever been in. Except for when the flashes of lightning lit up the sky, causing my heart to jump into my throat. I was completely freaked out by the total darkness, and was nearly heartbroken to discover that my lovely new lighting system was not even close to what I had hoped it would be.  I had to ride very slowly and carefully because I just couldn’t see the road all that well.  We heard creepy screaming noises off in the woods to our left (I convinced myself it was a peacock, but it was still pretty creepy). My friend James said he could tell my speed spiked up when I heard that.

There was no way I could sustain it, though.  I was absolutely exhausted, and having trouble keeping the bike moving in a straight line.  Sometime between 10 and 10:30 I hit something (in retrospect, probably the shoulder of the road), and went down. My first crash. Luckily, I was going so slowly I wasn’t badly hurt.  Of course, as I went down, James hit me and went sailing over his handlebars. He landed in front of me, with one foot trapped in my front spokes. Luckily, none of his bones were broken either-a good thing, given that his collar-bone was broken in a crash last fall.  We managed to scoot the whole tangled up mess off the road, and finally managed to get his foot disengaged from my front wheel. We shakily got back on our bikes, only to find that my tire was flat-the valve had snapped off. My first flat tire.  Did I mention that it was raining and very, very dark? We fixed it, but it took all three of us. Once more, back on the bikes.

By this time, I was really weaving all over the road. And the only problem with generator-powered lights is that when you slow down, your light dims. I rode some of the hills in those last couple of hours with very little light at all. When we got to 15-501, we just had to stop one more time-we hung out in a gas station, eating Little Debbie cakes, until the young guys working there had to close up at 11.  They were as nice as could be, but we must have been a real sight. Drenched, exhausted, muddy, and pretty strangely dressed on a Saturday night. I was beginning to feel like I had some scrapes and bruises, but I didn’t even bother peeling back my layers to look. For all I knew, there could have been blood seeping through my clothes.

Fortified with sugar and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, we headed once more into the dark and stormy night. The lightning had eased up. Once I stopped shivering, it didn’t seem quite as cold. But I was still mighty tired. On these winding back roads, we would occasionally turn a corner and see the orange-ish glow of the Triangle-area lighting up the sky, but then we’d go around a curve and be back in pitch-black. It was heartbreaking.

We finally got back to the finish in Morrisville at 12:40 am. That’s way past my bedtime. It’s also way past the time that I had hoped to finish by-we were at least two hours slower than I had predicted. The last 60 miles took us five long hours, after sustaining a nice, steady 15mph all day. It was quite a ride.

There in those last couple of hours, when I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it, I made up my mind that this was it-I was throwing in the towel.  I’m too old for this, I have too many other responsibilities, it’s eating up my life.  I’m not having fun.  The next morning, after very little sleep (pain in my shoulder kept me up, and I was too tired to remember to take ibuprofen), I got up, already planning what I need to differently on the 400k.

The shoulder is fine now, the bruises and scrapes have almost entirely faded, I’ve replaced the ripped arm warmers and jacket, and Matt has rebuilt my damaged front wheel. I’m ready for the next round!