Some numbers for you...158 miles, $2,600, 13 hours, 8,500 calories burned...probably 8,500 calories eaten.
I know why Lance always threatened to quit after the Tour, and why he decided it wasn't a good idea to make that decision right after crossing the finish line, or probably within a month of doing it. I'm exhausted. I'm not even sure it's the good kind of exhausted. If I had known what I was getting myself into in terms of the number and severity of the hills, would I have done it? Even knowing why I was doing it? I don't know. And I'm sure much of that is the pessimism speaking, which weighed on my most of yesterday and nearly all of today, with the brief exception of riding by a church bulletin board that said "Stop worrying." So I did. But that didn't stop the pain. If this is the kind of pain and hopelessness that MS sufferers experience, then it was all worth it. Worth it to feel it for them, worth it to bring awareness, to honor them, to raise money for a cure, etc. I'm thinking I didn't mentally and spiritually prepare for this battle...at least that's a better excuse than "I'm a negative, selfish, weak person." Because that's how I felt on the ride. Imagine doing squats for 10 minutes straight (or better yet, do it), and then imagine taking your bike up 285 several miles and you'll gather some semblance of what my quads felt like. And it's hard to stay mentally strong when you see the next hill, or the grown men walking their bikes up said hill, or thinking that geez, you still have 60 miles left.
However, am I proud to say I did it? Of course. Were there miles where I thought, man I love doing this, I could do it all day long? Few and far between, but yes. Was it uplifting to see over 3,000 riders together for the same cause, to see the names of their heroes pinned to their backs and to know they, too, were riding for someone special? Definitely. Was I so glad to be done? You have no idea.
On a nearly completely unrelated note, we went to Carrabba's for dinner last night to fuel up for the ride ahead. Always sit at the pasta bar...well, unless you're planning on having hours of deep conversation with your dinner companions. But at least once, do it. You're seated right away, even on a night with a 35 minute wait. You get to watch them make pizzas and flaming mussels. You get appetizers on the house, great service, great food, and plenty of it, and the chef will even tell you that it's the kahlua and rum that make the tiramisu taste like that (the people next to us had it, not us). Thoroughly enjoyable, which you probably saw coming because my love for food is no secret. Also, officially now, chicken canneloni is my favorite Italian dish, and that's saying something, since I've decided that though I'm 1/8 Greek, 1/8 Irish, and nearly 3/4 German by blood, I'm pretty much 100% Italian by heart. And stomach.
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