Greetings everyone!
First and foremost I want to thank all of those who sponsored me for this ride. I got an incredible amount of support and that was really awesome to see people ante up like that. so thank you and bravo to all of you who did.
I found it interesting as I was reading the notes that people send when they donated just how many people that I knew, or people close to them actually have diabetes. I didn't start this with any particular person in mind. I did this because it was a way for me to help out, I love to ride, there was a challenge factor in both the distance of the ride and getting a significant amount of donations. I really wanted to make a visible impression on the donation bank. And i think we accomplished that. And now next year, I have several people to ride "for" that are close to me.
So Im sure you all are a little curious about the ride itself. So here's the review:
First of all, the week prior I got incredibly sick. In and out of the hospital type sick. It was one of the worst illnesses I've ever had. I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to ride, but I was determined to, at the very least, show up and ride something, even only few miles.
But thankfully, I had a week to recover before the race started and I got as much rest as I could and did everything I could think of to regain that health level to be able to ride again. I managed to feel great by the day of the race. I had my parents on standby in case I had to drop out though. I've never actually ridden 50 miles in one shot so I had no idea how long "feeling great" was going to last.
The 50 mile course started out with an 11.6 mile climb up the valley to the lower part of the Sandia Mountain Range. One of the riders told me it was an 1800 foot elevation change. We started at the Santa Ana Casino parking lot and rode up through Placitas, which is a really nice ride...well, the views are nice, the ride up is a little taxing. I gotta say though, honestly, I expected it to be worse. Don't get me wrong, it was hard, there's nothing easy about climbing 1800 feet. but over all I felt stronger and better than I thought I was going to.
It took me about an hour and 20 minutes, I think, to reach the turn around at the top and I think I was only about 6 people behind the leader at that point.
I didn't stop for very long, I figured the ride back down was going to be pretty easy so no real point in stopping for too long.
The ride down was AWESOME. I reached my top speed for the whole ride which was 38.21 mph.
After that was the long stretch through Bernalillo up to Corrales. That was a long stretch for a few reasons. It was all flat, mostly with a slight incline, there was a little wind in the face at this point, and I was a good minute behind the leaders and a good chunk ahead of the rest. So I was pretty much out there on my own for a while. It was always more fun to ride in or near a pack of riders.
As I got near Corrales, a rider who I had left behind on the big climb had caught back up to me. That was a welcomed meeting. we took turns drafting each other and then started talking.
We both missed the turn off to the last rest stop and finished the race without ever seeing another rider. I think we passed a good chunk of the group ahead of us at that rest stop since we didn't stop. And chatting with my fellow rider made the last 15 miles go by much better.
Here are some over all stats of how I did:
48.48 Total miles
2:58:40 Total time
16.29 Average miles per hour
78 rpm Average cadence
38.21 Max speed
Here's a short highlight reel I pieced together quick.
I just want to thank everyone again for the wonderful support. It's nice to be part of a positive difference in something.
Thanks everyone.
