Today was a pretty usual day on the bike. We got a little taste of the Appalachian Mountains, which are getting to be a bit of a challenge, I suppose a good way to end the trip.
We woke up at 6, packed up and had a crew chief breakfast. It’s been a while since we had a crew chief breakfast, so it brought back some memories…half a bagel, half a banana, and cup of cereal. After breakfast, we headed out to Uniontown. I was riding again with Jorge, so I knew that there was a good chance I would get frustrated at some point today. I also rode with Houston (Tennessee), Tyler (Southern Miss), and Zak (Houston). We headed out going at a pretty good speed. Then we hit a few steep hills. Now, they weren’t too bad, but they were pretty steep, probably 13 percent grade. Sure it sounds tough, but with the conditioning we had for the past 2 months, it should be bearable. However, Jorge decided to test my limits, and we were going at roughly 4 mph up the hills. I could run faster. Regardless, we pushed through, and we made it to lunch.
25 miles in, we were sponsored by this hotdog place called “The Red Caboose.” It was in the middle of nowhere and had ridiculously low prices. Surprisingly, they had lines out the door, and it was barely 10 AM when we arrived there. They gave us chilli-chaz dogs and brownies. Probably not the best lunch, especially considering that we still had 35 miles to go. We had a little contest at who could have the most chilli-chaz dogs. I topped out at 4.
During the rest of the ride, I thought I was at a severe disadvantage from the amount of food I had for lunch. However, I was feeling fine, if not better than before. There were a few more climbs, but nothing too bad, and we managed to get to lodging. Houston and I were struggling, not because the terrain was tough, but because we were going so slowly.
We were staying at a YMCA for today, my favorite type of lodging. We cleaned up and we had some downtime before dinner. We went to the Uniontown Mall, which felt really empty, probably because it was a Tuesday afternoon.
Once we got back, we headed to a park where we were provided a pasta dinner by the Knights of Columbus rotary club. The meal was great, the perfect carb load-up for tomorrow, what was going to be one of the toughest days on the bike.
After dinner, we headed back to the YMCA where we had the rest of the night off. After a quick workout, I just relaxed. Right before lights out, Tyler came back from scouting looking scared. He was telling me that scouting was torture, seeing what he would have to climb tomorrow. Basically, harder than anything we have ever done. There were literally, two walls that we had to climb. They stopped at a gas station, and the clerks actually referred to the hill as “a wall.” Well, it didn’t exactly help me go to sleep.
Regardless, I think tomorrow will be alright…hopefully.
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