It was an early wake up today because of a hard ride. This was going to be a mentally challenging ride for the entire ride time. I rode with Rob and Peter – both great riders. The day kind of started off slow, and before I knew it was lunch and we definitely knew we needed to pick up the pace to make ride time. So we all agreed to just put our heads down and grind it out for the last few miles. We made it about 20 miles out and then all of a sudden I felt like I just hit a wall. My legs felt like they where going to fall off and my muscles started cramping and I was in this horrible state of feeling completely uncomfortable and exhausted. Now cycling is just as much mental as it is physical, and when I know that I am stuck in that feeling, I start to get happy. Because I know I have hit the hardest part of the ride and my day. After that moment passed the ride and my legs felt amazing. Ten miles of complete pain was finally rewarded by a massive downhill for about 6 miles. I looked back and told my pace line to get behind me because I was about to fly down this hill. My cycling computer told me I had a max speed of 50 miles an hour. We made it to rack point because Chief pushed it back a few minutes so we pushed on the last 5 miles to get to lodging. But Mother Nature had a different plan for us. We could see the storm moving from the mountaintop and it was closing in fast on us. 3 miles away from our housing we saw lighting and had to get off the bikes and as soon as we did that rain and hail started pouring down. I got my bike on the rack and we made it lodging a few minutes later only to be greeted with the coldest shower of my life. Once I finally got warm, we headed over to have a great friendship visit with the Special Olympics of Montana. We played basketball most of the time and got to meet some amazing people. After a wonderful dinner we head back to lodging and then head out to enjoy the night off and the extra sleep.
journeywiththomas 