First MS 150

I thought I might take a minute to post a short blurb about my first MS 150. It was a great ride, and I enjoyed meeting Nieves, whom many of you have had the pleasure of riding with. It was a great couple of days. Through Nieves experiences, I learned much more about the Wounded Warrior Project, and its extensive reach into the lives of these soldiers. What a great organization.

Ride Report:

Day 1 – It turned out to be 84 miles (personal best distance for me) instead of 75 (I guess that is a frequent occurrence with these rides, but I didn’t know it). I was riding with Nieves from the Wounded Warrior Project, who is a great guy. We started Day 1 at 7:30am and rolled in at 4:45pm. I was pretty beat at the end, and the sun had taken its toll. Day 1 was nice and flat with hardly any hills, yet we had about a 20-25 mph headwind for the first 35 miles (which made the last of the ride quite nice).

Day 2 – (76 miles) I latched onto some pace lines with some of my team members. It made a huge difference in speed and enabled me to save some energy while covering some good ground. I was able to skip some rest stops and only stop to fill the bottles. I started Day 2 (yesterday) and my butt hurt like heck. I guess you finally get used to it and just deal with it. I had taken some asprin and rubbed biofreeze all over my legs, which helped a little. I started at 7am and arrived at ‘lunch’, the 30 mile point, at 9:10am. I was then feeling pretty good. I ended up finishing at 12:30ish pm. The terrain was anything but flat. It was rolling hills the entire way. Again, again this was news to me! It sucked, but at the end I think I had accepted the hills and just took them slowly and pedaled like crazy on the downhills to make up time. While I had caught different pacelines throughout the day, I ended up with 2 other guys for the last 10 miles, and we took turns pulling and averaged about 18-19mph to the end. It was a great finish in Sundance Square, and my wife surprised me by inviting all of our siblings and their families to the post ride festivities. It was pretty emotional and overwhelming at some points because of how amazing all of the volunteers were, and overall it was an excellent ride. I'll post some pics in the coming days.