the never ending road

Day 3 was tougher than I anticipated. It was 83 miles, but seemed like a million. Much of the day was spent along this one very long road and as far as you could see in any direction was just empty fields. It was a gorgeous ride, but also monotonous. By mid-afternoon, I was convinced that road did not, in fact, ever end.



Yesterday, Rich told me that the ride would be a lot of "rollers", which apparently means that the terrain looks something like this...

At first my face lit up as I asked "The kind of rollers where you have enough momentum from each downhill to make it up the next hill?" He smiled and said "No, they're big rollers." He was right. One fellow has a gadget that tells you how much you've climbed each day -- even though I don't think our net elevation change was that great, due to the rollers, we ended up climbing about 2,500 feet throughout the day.

It was another gorgeous day, but was also very hot. I drank 8 liters of water today plus 2 water bottles of electrolytes. I put on sunscreen four times, but I still managed to end up looking a bit like Rudolph.

I made an effort to pick up the pace so I could stick with the group today, and the plan worked for the first half of the day, but I fell behind in the second half. The speaker and audio books (I'm starting with Atlas Shrugged) have been a saving grace though.

By the time I got to camp -- at the Odessa High School -- I was seriously gross. My skin was coated with layers of smudged sun screen, sweat, salt that had solidified on my skin, and layers of dirt. I have never been so happy about a shower! A group from the high school made us a dinner of salad, garlic bread, chicken parmesan, and strawberry short cake. I've been getting so excited about food that I end up putting more on my plate than I can eat. I must make a mental note about this so I don't do the same tomorrow!

I've been so amazed by how well organized the trip is. The route is really well planned, our lodging has been very well organized, and the food has been great! All of the crew members are also great. They've known the answer to all of my random questions (how often I should be eating, how much, etc. -- 100 - 200 calories per hour while riding is the answer in case you're curious), they're really great about keeping track of and checking on everyone, and are great at everything bicycle-related. Based on my experience so far, I'd really recommended events organized by the American Lung Association!