300km Randonnee

A few days ago I told Rachelle that I was planning on riding a 300km randonnee on Sat and I was also committed to carrying rocks (rock-bitch in the vernacular) on Sun. She decided that she had better things to do than listen to me complain about how sore I was so she bailed to Vancouver Island to carve porcelain. More about that in a different entry.

On Saturday AM I got up at 4:45, ate as much food as I could stomache at that hour, hopped onto the Marinoni and headed to the starting line. At 6AM we all took off and headed south into Washington. The pack of 70 or so riders spread out at the border crossing but Jeffo and I stuck together.

Around 11AM it started to rain and didn't let up until 4PM. Its amazing how quickly you can dry out on a bike when the rain stops. It took us just under 15 hours to complete the 300km, and then I had to ride another 6 km home, uphill.

I was pretty sore the next day. My left hand still feels kind of clumsy 2 days later... Probably the result of compressing some nerves in the wrist. It usually improves in a few days, so hopefully I'll be totally recovered near the middle of the week.

The biggest challenge in a randonnee, for me, is food management. I always end up super low at some point and need to shovel food into my body. I just can't get the hang of eating something every 20 minutes or so.

It was a gorgeous ride and aside from the rain, very enjoyable. Around the 100km stuff starts to drift by in a bit of a fog. One's brain is engaged in the processes of keeping the body propelling the bike and all other thoughts are shoved aside. Each ride brings a huge feeling of accomplishment which outweighs any aches, pains, or numb hands.