I thought today was going to be a killer day. Luckily, it was not.
We started the day off at 6. The organization that hosted us at lodging provided breakfast for us. We got a full bagel, and a full banana, and a normal sized bowl of cereal. It felt like Christmas. I didn’t want to miss up my routine, so I didn’t eat much.
The ride today was suppose to be tough. 45 miles, half of which was suppose to be a huge climb up to an elevation-high of 11,990 feet. For the ride, I decided to sweep, so I was in the last paceline, along with Jason, where we made sure no one got left behind. Jason has done a few Ironman, and my bike’s brand name is Iron Horse, so a bunch of the team started calling us the “Iron Paceline” which led to “Iron de Force.” We were pretty solid sweeps.
The climb was moderately tough. It was pretty tough, 8% grade uphill, that never seemed to end. Since we were sweeps, we had to pace ourselves so we didn’t catch up to any other paceline. Thus, we ended up going at a really comfortable pace at roughly 6 mph. Honestly, I didn’t really break a sweat.
Once we got to the top, the air got a lot thinner, and it was a little harder to breathe. It sort of felt like my childhood asthma was kicking in. On our way down the mountain, man was that scary. The grade was pretty steep, so it would have been easy to go 50 mph, probably faster. I was holding on to my breaks for my dear life, so I only went like 35 mph. On top of that, it was ridiculously cold. The temperature on top of mountain was 40 degrees. Top that with wind chill and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were below freezing. On the way down, my hands were numb, and this was during a sunny July afternoon. The rest of the ride wasn’t bad at all. We went on a bike trail for a few miles, which had some spectular views. We arrived at lodging which was a summer camp for kids with disabilities. During this week, there were kids with Austism present. Once we arrived at camp, we had our usual lunch. Since I swept, I got to eat first.
Another cyclist gave me a buzz cut, since my hair was getting a little out of control. I took a quick shower, and we hopped in the camp’s swimming pool along with some of the campers. The pool really helped relax our muscles, especially from a moderately tough ride. After we played around a bit, we dried off and did a few activities with the campers. They had planned arts and crafts, a tractor ride, and rockclimbing and zip line. I chose the latter, which was a blast. I’m not that good at rock climbing but it was a lot of fun. The zip line was really neat. I never have done it before so it was thrilling. It made me real excited for skydiving, which I’m destined to do later on this trip.
After the afternoon activities, we went to the dining hall where we had dinner. It was a pretty healthy dinner, which was nice for a change, grilled chicken and veggies.
A scavenger hunt for the campers followed the dinner. We basically split off into multiple groups and dressed up as cartoon characters and did a little skit for them. I was Bashful from the seven dwarfs. Luckily, no pictures were taken.
After a long day, all I wanted want a deep sleep. Tomorrow will be a lot of fun. We head off for Denver at 5, our second biggest arrival. I’ll also get to my brother, Neil, and his wife, Rachel, in Denver for a little bit.
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