Pain, pain, and more pain

This is a tale of pain. Lots and lots of pain. The pain was incurred during the Planetarium Ride on August 11th but to begin the story properly we must go all the way back to August 10th.

My dad came down from Milwaukee the afternoon of the 10th. After dinner we decided to go to the local bike shop. I wanted to see if they had a replacement bladder for my CamelBak. The old one had developed a leak around the closure. At any rate, I ask the salesmen where they are and he shows me what they have (which was not what I needed). While I looking at what they have my dad approaches the salesmen and asks in his very loud voice "Hey DO YOU HAVE ANY CHAMOIS BUTTER?" Does he not realize some questions are best asked in hushed tones e.g. "psst... buddy you got any chamois butter?"

Anyhow... now might be a good time to mention I had not been doing a ton of riding since our Reno trip but I wasn't too worried. I had been doing 60+ mile rides all summer so it didn't seem like the 70 mile ride would be a big deal...

This might also be a good time to mention that temperatures for the next day were forecast to be in the high 90's with a heat index of 100+.

As a follow on to that I might mention I HATE riding in extreme heat and/or humidity. It just seems to sap energy out of you like nothing else.

Also, because the starting location for the ride was over an hour away we had to get up at 4AM in order to make sure we could start riding as early as possible (6 AM).

Did I mention I hate getting up super early the day of a ride? Can you see where this is all leading?

So we arrive at the middle school where the ride was to depart from dark and early. The temperature is in the mid 70's at 6:00AM and the humidity is about 1500%. OK, I may be off by a percent or two but I don't think so.

We get our registration packet, get on bikes and head out. The ride starts out with a long stretch of mostly uphill riding (I should mention here that I hate rides that start out uphill). Nothing felt right, I felt like I was riding in jelly. I was sweating like mad and could barely manage 12 mph (which later in the ride would seem like break neck speeds, cue the ominous foreshadowing music).

But after the first rest stop I started to feel alot better. The terrain seemed to have an equal amount of uphill and downhill sections and the route was quite scenic. Plus as the sun rose it knocked a lot of the humidity out of the air and it started to feel quite pleasant.

This lasted until about mile 42. At mile 42 two things happened. Number one a certain portion of my anatomy which we won't mention by name but will say it rhymes with nomad (the right one if you must know) began to hurt. Luckily it only hurt when I pedaled (by that I mean bad luck seeing as I was continuously pedaling and still had 29 miles to go). Number two was that the temperature began to soar. In fact it was so hot the tar on the road started to bubble and you could hear the bubbles pop as our bikes rode over them. It was HOT!

My dad on the other hand was looking down right chipper. He looked ready to take off on Lance's wheel if the opportunity presented itself. Every time he looked at me, however, he got a really worried look on his face and gave me encouraging comments like "You want me to call the SAG wagon?" or "You don't look very good."

I don't remember much of the rest of the ride except for constant pain and the urge to stop and just chuck my bike into the nearest field ( I think the only thing that stopped me was I didn't have the strength to chuck a pebble much less my bike). Even when we got within two miles of the finish I wasn't fully convinced I was going to be able to ride the whole thing. My speed had dropped to the point where as I leaned over the bars trying to ignore the pain and heat, I could watch ants slowly pulling away from me. I tried to latch on and draft behind them but those ants are just too fast...

Finally, we arrived back at the start point and I slowly got off my bike and made my way inside for the lunch. I've never been so glad a ride was over in my life.