Biking the 545! The td;lr brain dump!
I wish I had stopped long enough to write something every day, but the whole experience was just overwhelming on every level. The schedule was insane. I woke up at 4 o'clock every morning to break down my camp, dress, repack my bags, and load them on the gear truck. Then I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, stood in breakfast line, generally
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When I did it (the very first ALC way back when), I didn't train enough and ended up pulling my psoas on day 2, but kept on until day 3 when I got noro virus or something and had to get an IV in the med tent. That passed in 24 hours or so, but I was still too weak to ride, so I volunteered in the massage tent once I was cleared for duty. It was awesome and I met tons of great people in the massage, PT and chiropractic teams. It was funny because the team I was on kind of fell apart - one guy was my good friend and a strong cyclist and he helped me a ton in training, but his girlfriend was possibly jealous of me and this manifested itself by her snubbing me the entire ride, especially after I got sick. It was like she thought I was faking when I was puking my guts out and running to the port-a-potties, and she wouldn't even talk to me when she had to go to the med tent herself. The other guys on my team was a very sweet, older guy with HIV who could only do a few miles each day (he was really awesome) and another guy who was into racing and was always the first or second person done for the day. So we never rode together, basically!
So definitely all your training and hard work and enthusiasm paid off! Not just for you but for all the people whose lives will be touched through the money you raised. It's a good thing you did, and if I didn't have such a crazy experience the first time I would probably do it again myself. I am not enough of an athlete to go there again, though, so I do what I can in other ways. ;) Maybe one day that'll be different!
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