Just Another Rainy Sunday

whoa-oh-oh.

(Anyone singing that Manic Monday song now? Anyone?)

Almost exactly one month ago, I rode my bike for 100 miles. In a row. Through the mountains. In the rain. Oh my.

America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride took place on June 5th starting and ending in the town of South Lake Tahoe. The ride circumnavigated the 72-mile perimeter of the Lake and included a 28-mile out and back to Truckee, CA to make it an even 100-mile event: the cyclist's coveted Century Ride.

This also marked my seventh event with Team in Training (TNT), and my first event with the cycle team. Put that together with two full marathons and four triathlons and you've got yourself a TNT Triple Crown (completing three separate sports with TNT). My good friend Audra and I actually both earned our Triple Crowns at AMBBR and were recognized at the Inspiration Dinner the night before the event.

In the days leading up to the ride, my whole team had been watching the weather forecast like hawks, desperately hoping the meteorologists were wrong (sorry, Jerilyno). The chance of rain slowly climbed from 40% to 50% to 70% and up. Our practice ride the day before was cut short due to the rain. Things were looking bleak. And sure enough, my alarm went off at 5am on race day and the first thing I heard was the whoosh of pouring rain in the courtyard outside my window. "Awww, crap." said I. Then I got out of bed, put on many layers of clothing, and met my team downstairs to begin our 100-mile adventure.

As we stepped outside, we were greeted with 40-degree temperatures and, of course, the steadily falling rain. But we're nothing if not stubborn and all those 60-, 70-, and 80-mile training rides in the Arizona heat were not going to be in vain, and so at 6:15am we began the wettest, coldest day of our lives.

The course starts in South Lake Tahoe and after about 10 miles reaches Emerald Bay, the first big climb of the day. This 5-mile climb involves a series of switchbacks, which means it's...rather steep. And at this early point in the (cold, rainy) day, it was a bit of a shock to the system to begin tackling the beast. Oh, and the altitude. Let's not forget the altitude, which started at 6300 feet above sea level and went up from there. But up the hill we went, all the way to the top, where we were greeted by spectacular views of Emerald Bay (which was more gray than its trademark emerald color, but still gorgeous). From there, we continued on through Meeks Bay, Tahoma, Homewood, and Sunnyside into Tahoe City where we took a left turn off of the lake to begin the descent out to Truckee.

A note about cycling in the rain - especially cycling in groups in the rain:
bike tires kick up a lot of water off of the road. And by water I mean filthy, dirty, road-grime-laced water. And if you happen to be following someone, you end up getting covered in the spray from their rear tire. Observe: this was me at our rest stop in Truckee, 47 miles into the ride. (click to enlarge)

My crew that I had been riding with all season regrouped at Truckee and we began the long climb back out together. We made our way to King's Beach (mile 71) and hit up the lunch stop. Bountiful sandwiches, fruit, chips, cookies and brownies awaited us, as did my parents and their friends, who had flown in from Nebraska to cheer me on. Seeing them was a great boost (as was the food) and we embarked on our last 30 miles with a new lease on life, even knowing that the majority of the day's climbing still awaited us. Thankfully, by this point the rain had become more sporadic and the sun even peeped out here and there.

We rode on for another 10 miles covering some smaller hills and seeing some amazing houses along the lake. And then, at mile 81, we hit Spooner - the BIG climb. 8 miles of constant uphill gaining over 1000 feet of elevation. We pedaled. We pedaled some more. We admired the spectacular views off to our right. We kept on pedaling. And finally... finally... we were at the top! The next six miles were the best part of my day. We had a wide shoulder and a whole lane to ourselves, the rain had stopped for the moment, and we were able to open it up and just FLY down this winding mountain pass. It was glorious.

Once we hit the bottom, we had about 5 or 6 miles of rolling hills to conquer before we made it back into South Lake Tahoe to the finish line. It seemed like every hill we came to, someone would holler out "You can do it! This is the last hill!" and then, of course, once we reached the top we'd see another hill right up ahead. It made me want to shove someone. But I didn't. Then we crested this one last long, winding hill and all we could see in front of us was a valley and the hulking outlines of the casinos where the finish line was located. And so, after about 8 hours of tooling along through the mountains and the rain and the cold and the altitude, we crossed the finish line of America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride. It was amazing.

After celebrating with Francheska and Sue and some other teammates, I headed back out to the last turnoff on the race course and waited for Audra. I had promised her many months ago that, even though we ride at different speeds, I would cross the finish line with her. So for the next hour or so I had a blast cheering on hundreds of other riders as they neared the finish. It was so fun. I saw lots of my other teammates go by. And then I saw Audra and Marian flanked by our coaches coming my way. I hopped on my trusty Freeze Ray and rode that last .6 miles in with Audra and watched and cheered as she and Marian finished the ride.

It was a day that could have been horrible, but instead it turned out to be one of the most fun and rewarding days I've had this year. Hooray for cycling! And hooray for our team of 27, who raised over $175,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. An amazing group of people I'm proud to call my friends.Go Team!