Day 9: Whooo hooo! My first century! Today started out in good time as we knew we had a long way to go-7:00 a.m. We left Sleepy Hollow State Park after a restful night (I didn’t actually wake up to the doors of the gear truck opening at 5:00 this morning! We wound our way through a lot of smaller towns in a pretty much straight east direction.
The day was warm and there was a headwind for all of the 97.5 miles! I could tell we were getting closer to my stomping grounds as we crossed many familiar roads-M-52 which runs through Chelsea, where I work, I-69 which runs north-south down the middle of the state, US-23 which runs around Ann Arbor, and I-75 which runs into Detroit. We spent a little time (7.2 miles) on M-53 about three quarters of the way through our day which was VERY busy! There was a wider shoulder at spots but we had a lot of traffic buzzing along our left shoulders.
As we got closer to Richmond, we came through Armada and many of the cyclists stopped here for a dairy replenishment. Our group did not, opting instead to work towards the end of our day as our knees and bums were sore! Billy D. obviously enjoyed the stop!
We continued on to Richmond, still into the wind, and our pace slowed a little with our tired bodies feeling the distance. Lisa and I had commented to each other that as our knees were sore, we were content with just getting to camp, not making the extra few miles to make the day a century (100miles) as we had 95 miles slated on our map for the day.
We arrived in camp and I had 97.5 miles on my odometer. Lisa and I parked our bikes and started to get our gear bags ready to set up our tents. A moment later, Bob walked around the back of the gear truck and told Lisa he and Len were going to finish out the hundred. Lisa and I looked at each other, and decided if they were going, we might as well go also. We managed to find a Dairy Queen in our travels and rounded out the hundred…of course taking a picture to memorialize my first century!
At peleton this evening, we had a guest. Marcia Van’t Hof (whose husband Mark was planning on riding from Denver to Grand Rapids but then passed away in February) spoke with us on Isaiah 58. Josh Nyenhuis and Len Riemersma also spoke of the impact of Mark touching their lives as well.
Today was also Art’s birthday and after peleton a few of got together and went to Dairy Queen to celebrate! (Shhhhh! Don’t tell anyone I’d already been there once today!) We had some fun, and oh, by the way, the ice cream was good as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment