Day two was an early start...extra early for me, even. As many of you know, I'm a bit OCD about numbers. As in, if I'm out for a 5 mile run and I hit my driveway at 4.97 miles, I will run past it to get that extra .03. It's ok to go OVER on miles, but not under! :-p So, when I heard that this year's Courage Classic century route was going to be short of 100 miles due to a construction detour, well...you can probably figure out where I'm going with this. After all, I promised my sponsors that if they helped me raise $1000, I would ride 100 miles, and anything less would just feel like cheating, ya know? Not to mention that I REALLY wanted to see my Garmin tick over to 1-0-0!
For some reason, I couldn't convince anybody else to ride the extra make-up miles with me, so I decided the best course of action was just to get up early and ride those extra miles before we got started. Especially since I had a pretty good feeling that I was not going to want to turn around and ride back out onto the course at the end of the ride when the finish line was in sight. I left the dark and silent condo around 5:45 am with the goal of riding 8-9 miles before meeting the group for a 6:30 start. I rode out of the condo and decided to ride a few loops of the base area, from the highway up the bike path and back. It was just the teeniest bit chilly on a bike that early. Oh, who am I kidding? It was fricking freezing! 8.5 miles later, I was headed back to the condo, where the group wasn't quite ready to roll yet. My hands were so cold that I had them stuck inside the toaster oven trying to warm up and still couldn't feel anything. Needless to say, I was not quite super enthusiastic about heading back out into the cold.
As soon as everyone was ready, we rolled down toward the start line and out for the "official" beginning of the day's ride. There were several team members tackling the century ride, but our little group consisted of myself, Amy, Jean, and Stefan. The ride through the canyon down toward Frisco was one of the coldest rides I've ever been on. The sun wasn't quite up yet, at least in the canyon, and we were going downhill, making it that much worse. We stopped at the first aid station in Frisco mostly just to warm hands up enough to be able to brake. And to get my frozen contact lens unstuck from my eyeball! The ride through Frisco and around the reservoir was beautiful in the early morning. I wish I had taken some pictures, but we were pretty focused on taking care of business since we knew we had a long day ahead of us.
Just after skirting the north end of Lake Dillon, we hit the turnoff for the century route and headed north through Silverthorne toward Ute Pass. As we made our way out of Silverthorne, we saw the eagle's nest, and even better...the bald eagle was perched on top of it! Way cool! I've seen the nest several times, but had never seen an eagle in it before. This section flew by, as we semi-pacelined up highway 9. I was feeling pretty good about myself until we got absolutely blown by by a group of about 20 guys in a paceline. Hmph. In no time at all, we were at the bottom of Ute Pass, and the fun and games were over!
Comparatively speaking, I guess Ute Pass wasn't all that bad, but it was definitely a pretty good climb. And it was starting to get hot. Here's the thing about Ute Pass...it apparently wasn't good enough for the route designers to take us UP the pass. Nope, we had to go up, over, and down. Just to get to turn around and climb back up again! And here's a big fat virtual "pffffffttttt" to the guy who passed me on the way up (the first time) and claimed that the climb back up was shorter and easier. LIAR. Best part of going over the top? The cherries at the aid station at the bottom. They pretty much rocked. Otherwise, I could have done with some flat miles elsewhere rather than that extra climb! I did make a friend on the way back up to the top, and it was great to chat with someone for a mile or so, since everyone else in the group had spread out, and I was way back in the back. Soon enough, we made it to the top (AGAIN) and stopped for a few minutes to soak in the spectacular view.
The WI boys (I think their names were Nick and Jeff?), Stefan, me, Amy, and Jean on top of Ute Pass. The second time. (Yes, I'm the only one not in my team jersey. It was hot, so I stuffed it in the back pocket of my tank. Sue me. :-P)
The ride DOWN the pass was AWESOME. I mean, seriously. The only reason I ride UP hills is so I get to ride DOWN them. I love flying down a mountain, and the pavement on Ute Pass was sweet and smooth, with little to no traffic.
After the pass, we headed back into Silverthorne the way we came. I was still feeling relatively good at this point, all things considered. We were still kind of pacelining, and I was even leading for a good portion. Just before we hit the aid station on the way back into town, my Garmin died. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I knew the battery had been getting sketchy, but I was really hoping it might survive the day. I mentioned how I really wanted to see it display 100, right? Sad face. It died 66 miles in, and I was destined to be Garmin-less for the remainder of the day. Which kind of killed me. For the rest of the day, I had no real idea how far I had to go to get anywhere, which was really mentally challenging.
And then....the bonk. Wow, that was ugly. As we were heading into Dillon, I just ran out of juice. We hit an uphill section and suddenly, I was just done. The group pulled farther and farther ahead of me, but there was nothing I could do, I just couldn't keep up. Amy stopped at the bottom of Swan Mountain Road to take a picture and I stopped with her and finished off the sport beans I had with me, in hopes that they would get me up and over Swan Mountain, our last big climb of the day.
Amy and I at the bottom of Swan Mountain. Don't let the smile fool you, I was not doing well here.
I won't lie: Swan Mountain was brutal. It was hot. It was a tough climb. My legs were tired and sore, and I had zero energy. There were tears. At one point in the middle, I tried to distract myself with the beauty of the wildflowers and the mountains, but that only helped for a minute or so. I stopped a few times on the last section up to the top. And when I finally made it to the aid station, I proceeded to inhale about six nutrigrain bars, three granola bars, and a ton of gatorade. Lesson learned. Even if the offerings at the aid station don't sound that great to you, EAT when you're doing a century ride! Breakfast and a banana and a few sport beans are apparently only good for about 70 miles. :-/
The upside of making it up Swan Mountain was another fun descent down and on into Breckenridge for the lunch stop. There was some welcome shade waiting for us, as well as one of the best-tasting cans of Coke I have ever had. There were mixed reviews on the lunch offerings, but my post-bonk tastebuds thought the stir-fry beef and rice tasted pretty darn good!
After lunch, we only had about 15 miles to go back to Copper Mountain. Sidebar: 85ish miles into a century ride is WAY too late for a lunch stop, in my opinion; I guess it's what works best for the 35 and 50 mile routes, but I wish they would have had something more substantial earlier for the century riders. 15 miles. Piece of cake, right? Actually, the first several miles were pretty good. I was definitely rejuvenated after getting some food into me. That lasted until the path turned away from the highway and into a section that, while beautiful, had some small hills that were about all I could handle at this point in the ride. One last aid station (where I sent a text to Megan to alert her that we were on our way in, so she could get some pictures with my camera) and it was time for the last section back up the canyon to Copper. Normally, I don't think this section is too hard, but at this point in the day, it was one of the toughest rides I've ever done. A long, slow, gradual uphill. It was hot, and I desperately wanted to just jump into the river, but that was going to have to wait till after the finish. I was SO tired at this point, and I kept thinking how glad I was to have already done the extra miles that morning and not have those still ahead of me. Reinforced by the fact that as we got close to Copper, we saw some of our teammates heading back down the path toward us, trying to get their hundred in!
As we came off the bike path and headed into the resort, we pulled over to the side so that we could wait for teammates (and alert those who didn't ride the century to get themselves and their cameras to the finish area). After we regrouped, we rolled down the road together. I don't think I even have the words to describe the finish. It was, quite simply, one of the most amazing feelings of my life, crossing the finish line with 14 of my teammates, having just finished my first century ride. The fact that we rode in as a team was phenomenal. I'm sure people would have cheered for us anyway, but the sight of us all rolling in together produced a pretty big ovation that gave me chills. I had tears in my eyes for the second time that day, but this time, they were happy tears.
Here comes Team AHEC!
Amy and Jean
Yeah! We made it!
I think we had 24 members of Team AHEC complete the century ride. That's almost half of our team, pretty awesome! And, I'm happy to say, that I was not the only one crazy enough to add extra miles to make sure it really was a century (although I WAS the only one crazy--or was it crazy smart--enough to do it before the ride officially started!).
12 of our Team AHEC members who crossed the finish line together...we lost a couple before the picture
Happy century riders!
After another blissful dip in the ice-cold stream, we got cleaned up for our team dinner. The director of AHEC traditionally treats the team to dinner on day two. We weren't totally sure what to expect but were very pleasantly surprised with a three course meal, including a choice of steak, salmon, or chicken. Our table of students put some serious hurt on the HUGE steaks that we were served. I think we had 8 girls order steak, and 6 of us demolished them and totally cleaned our plates. We earned it, right?!
Best. Steak. EVER.
Still to come: day three. Mosquito bites, crashes, some more gorgeous views, and an incredible feeling of accomplishment! Thanks for reading!