OLD OLD OLD post found in my drafts folder. Setting it free. Does contain some outdated info. Enjoy…
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This is essentially my final post about my MS150 experience..
Friday night-
Was frantically getting ready. Something about having looming deadlines makes me work. Hmmm…anyways, the loose plan was to gather up stuff and head over to my parents house and have them take me to Rhodes stadium for the start. Well I was gathering stuff and my bike had a flat tire. No problem, I thought, I got a spare and there are plenty of ones to get while on the ride. Well my spare was flat too. Ugh! And it was 7pm. Slight panic…. Run around my house in circles…several times…
Realize that my neighbor, next-door to my parents, is my ride back home from Austin. Will G. & Melissa D. Will G. and I ran marathons together. Melissa D. is doing the MS150. They are bringing me back from Austin. Surely they got a spare? Cell phone call… yup everything will work out. They got extras. Sweet. Finish packing. Then realize that I really need to lube up the chain on the bike, plus it looks like rain and the lube will act as a protectant as well. 45 mins later I am finally on my way to the parents house.
Go next door and get the tubes from Melissa D.. Feel better hearing that she hasn’t even packed yet. My anxiety level drops a few pressure points.
Original plan was to have dinner, eating out, with the folks. I tell them I’m a little stressed and have quite a list of things to do til I’m finished. They bring food home. Relief. Finished up preparing by 10:30pm.
Saturday:
Wake up at 4:30am. My father and I roll out at 5:20ish. Get to the stadium with plenty of time. Smattering of rain. No down pour, more like God spitting on us. I get ready and was rolling out to the start line and was half way there when I realized I forgot my helmet!!!! Quickly turned back and found my dad still parked in my car reading his book. Passing time so traffic would clear out! Lol… Got stuff and went back to the start line and met up with my “team”.
My Team is Bayou City Outdoors, the adult outdoor adventure group people. They had this MS150 package, where we get all the training rides, a bike jersey, and a bed and breakfast stayover outside of the fairgrounds (where it is MUCH more quiet). We take a group photo and then we were off by 7:30am. Honestly there didn’t seem to be that many people this year. I think it was more that people were going to start later, thinking that the rain was going to be much more of a problem when it totally wasn’t. I got more wet from spray off of tires in front of me and my own sweat from heating up too much from the rain jacket.
Hung with a fairly equal rider for the first day. Once we really kinda hit the road we cruzed. With the nice tail wind we were averaging 18-20mph. So flying pretty fast, and that was including some hills. I think we got to the lunch stop at 10:15am. The second half of the ride after lunch was MUCH hotter, but we still had the tail wind. Kept us going and it was pretty nice having someone to ride with for most of the ride. Towards the end, Mike K, finally got ahead of me right before La Grange. We met at the DQ inside of la Grange and waited for the BCO people to pick us up and take us to the BnB. Turns out we were the first to arrive, (1pm) so Miek and I got the first massages @ the BnB. One awesome hour with fresh hands! SCORE! Hot showers and burgers with cold beer made the end of the day great. Lots of laughs with the other riders as they slowly trickled in, sharing “war” stories. At the end of the evening guys were shipped off to the other “shack” where we slept while the ladies had the house. The shack reminded me of the Eagle Scout Masters cabin at summer boy scouts camp! Pretty spartan and old. But the bed worked and the roof didn’t lea. Bugs and critters stayed out.
Sunday:
Awoke at 5am. Felt soreness in the legs and lots of saddle soreness. For me it was mostly cause I hadn’t done as many LONG rides as part of my training. There was some rain and luckily for me, iI was in the B group to go out to the starting line. Well the A group got rained on cause they left 45 mins before us. BCO took us in two separate groups cause there was a limited number of carpooling vehicles, hence the reason for two trips.
Second day was much slower for me and we didn’t have a tail wind. Day started with the hill section through the state park. Very cool and crisp and some drizzle. I love the hills. Lots of people complain and fret and worry about them. Yeah sure they can be tough, but if you have the shifter technique down, they aren’t that hard. (crybabies!) Had fun and there seemed, again to be less people going through the hills. Maybe most took the “easier” route? My legs certainly felt much more noodly this day. Not as much power, but I knew I would be able to get through it, just not as fast. Again arrived at lunch around 10am. Second half of the ride ran into the headwind, but it wasn’t as bad as others I’ve had before. Got into a medium speed pace line and got through most of it. Pretty much rode by myself the entire day. Very zen.
Finally rolled in to Austin right before 1pm. It was really nice. The day turned out beautiful and the weather was perfectly cool with a slight breeze. Crossing the finish line was an accomplishment for me. One that I’m proud of and one that i’ve worked on for the past three years. And boy am I glad it’s done!
Hung around the finish line area with Will G. until his wife finally showed with her father. Got a photo of the four of us all wearing MS150 shirts. From consecutive years. And no, it wasn’t planned. Very funny. Afterwards we drove to a pizza place in Austin and gorged ourselves on some stuffed pizza and beer. I think I ate about 4 large all meat stuffed thick crust slices. This is on top of the food provided by Hooters back at the finish line! Back at home I checked to see that I had burned 10k calories over the weekend from riding! Not bad.
Will G. thankfully drove us home. I got home and repacked into my car at my folks and then headed back to my place. I think I got home around 9:30pm. I finally crashed at 11pm…
Final note:
Glad it’s done. For sure will be my last time riding it. I have no desire to ride that route again. Besides I’m looking to get OFF from the concrete. Mountain biking adventures are next up for me. Marry that up with overnight weekend camping and some trail running and you have a recipe for weekend fun to me!