Riding with Lance

Day One of Pelotonia is officially in the books. To date over $4 million raised! How great is that! To see the line of bicycles at the start was really impressive.

So I did it. The official stalker that I am! I rode with Lance -- and not only did I ride in the pack that he led I actually rode WITH HIM! and talked with him for about 3 or 4 miles. Well he talked -- I huffed and puffed. And that was about as long as I could stay in the wind! But I rode with a legend!

That was the absolute hardest I've ever ridden my bike. I did 30 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes -- do the math -- that is FAST!! And I suffered the rest of the day! They let Lance start a bit before us I(and we were about 6 back at the start line) then released us. I realized that this would be my only chance to ride even close to him so I had to take off. It took a bit just to get to the pack and it was HARD getting there. About 50 people made it -- 5 or 6 women representing. We turned in and out of town and the pack was all together elbow to elbow, had a handlebar scrape my backside -- almost like riding in the peloton! And now I have a slim idea of how it feels, how incredibly hard it is to position yourself in the pack for a sprint finish -- where everyone is struggling to get to the same piece of real estate. Everyone of course wanted to ride next to him, chat just a bit. So it was quite a battle, tons of sprinting, braking, sprinting, trying to find an alley, following a wheel -- it was incredibly terrifying and a blast at the same time.

And then -- woohoo! I was right behind him. Trying to take pictures not realizing it was off or dead. Now that is a bummer! Sure Xen will say I have no proof -- but my tired aching body knows I did it. I couldn't get to his left so I dodged across the group and snuck up on his right. I told him I wouldn't be able to stay long and he told me I could. I fell off at a series of curves, then fought back on again -- he said -- Hey there you are -- you're back. I got to show him the jersey -- got ahead a bit and he grabbed ahold of it to check it out -- thought it was cool. Chatted a bit about Dad, Rona, Beth and some others on the list. Chatted a bit about the tour and told him the climbs we did -- he whewed on how hard the one series was. Chatted a bit about the Tour of Ireland -- guess there were lots of cars on the road, a bit rough, then the famous rain the day he pulled out. So now I'm way in the red zone and exhausted from just getting up there. He chatted a bit with the guy to his left -- I hung a bit and then dropped off. But overall I stayed with that pack for 30 miles -- couldn't have gone 1 mile further at that pace. 70 miles to go!

Wonderfully supported ride, great weather. Overcast to start then the sun came out and it did heat up a bit. Windy to start, some cross winds when I was fighting to stay in the pack, but then settled out. But I'll tell you -- 40 of the last 50 miles was ROUGH. There were tons of hills (many people walked -- no I didn't!) and my quads were cramping up from exhaustion from that early effort with no warm up. It was a challenging ride, but southeastern Ohio is just beautiful.

And everywhere we went there were folks at the side of the road cheering us on. Lots of survivors with signs thanking us, lots of love and joy. How could you not keep pushing on with that. The outpouring, the community support (and some of these were very little towns), it was all so special. I waved and said thanks for being out here to SO many people.

My own personal SAG -- Cindy and Dave -- did a wonderful job finding the route and getting to rest stops. Normally I would have passed the 30 mile rest stop and I was so glad they were there so it gave me an excuse to get away from that infernal pace! And I'm telling you -- Lance was never under any pressure! He didn't stop at any of the rest stops and ended at 11:30. By the time he passed the 90 mile stop he was one hour, 30 minutes in front of me. Take away 30 minutes for the rest stops I had he covered 1 minute for each mile faster than I did. Wonder if he even sweated! At mile 90 -- of the original pack of 50 -- only 1 guy was still with him -- and there were some strong riders in that pack!

By the time I had finished, ate, napped, ate again he had flown to Colorado, driven home, and was hanging with Max -- his 3 month old. Since Leadville 100 a few weeks ago he was in Norway, did the Tour of Ireland, went to Dublin for the LiveSTRONG summit, flew to Aspin, then to Plano Texas, then to Pelotonia -- talk about exhausted. From his twitter account:

Just finished Pelotonia ride from Cbus to Athens, Ohio. Love the Hocking hills! What a great turn out 4 a 1st yr event. Over 4 mil raised.about 7 hours ago from UberTwitter

http://twitpic.com/fr9fe - Psyched to be home hanging with this guy, @maxarmstrong1.about 1 hour ago from TwitPic

Passed one sign from OSU Medical Center -- in the time we'd been riding 4 people had been diagnosed with cancer and 1 had died. 1 of 2 men will get cancer, 1 of 3 women. The stats are staggering. Too see so many people that have been touched with the disease was truly humbling.

I crossed the finish line -- blew a kiss to Dad and raised my arms for everyone that was on my jersey, all the stories I've heard. Touched the name on my jersey and thanked God for a safe day.

Even with the hills, and because of the fast start this was my fastest century ever -- 5 hours and 7 minutes. We ended up doing over 103 miles total. They had a marvelous dinner for us at the end and massages! That was much appreciated! A quick nap, dinner, a blog and now I need to sleep and hope to do the same hills all over again tomorrow.