June 12 2023

 Today’s ride was from Marysville Ohio to Wooster Ohio. Today’s ride was a century ride of 101 miles. I actually ended up doing 103 as I took a wrong turn a couple of times. The day started out pretty cool. It then began to lightly rain. at the first sag stop I grabbed a a pair of pants and a second shirt. This actually helped to keep me quite warm. But that was until the sun came out and then I started sweating. At the second sag stop I remove the pants, but kept the jacket as it was still a bit cool.  Today’s ride included a lot of rolling hills. This is actually my favorite type of ride where you can go really really fast down the hill and if you’re lucky enough, you can get enough speed to get up to the top or almost up to the top. It didn’t stop from having a few climbs though.  At one point I was kind of just needing a break so I walked up part of one of the hills. But I only did that once. I did not take a lot of pictures today as I was determined to finish this ride to get a century under my belt on this adventure. This was actually the last chance I had.  Although the rest of the rides on under 100 miles, most of them are between 80 and 90. When I got to the hotel, I was quite spent. I needed to drink some chocolate milk. I went to the store. I bought a couple of  bottles of chocolate milk, but as I was waiting to get on the elevator, the emergency EMTs showed up. I actually asked them if I could take the elevator first. I was a bit confused at that time. It did become something of a comical relief. I did let them get on the elevator.  that just points to my state of mind. I wasn’t dehydrated or malnourished I was just spent. Tomorrow we ride to Niles Ohio. Again, I can’t believe that in a week or a little over a week. This adventure will come to a close.

Most of my blogs are quite factual. I think that comes from my surgical background where we just kind of deal in facts. We get right to the point. But I want you all to know that I am having a really good time on this ride I’ve had a lot of time to think about things, have has emotional responses , have had some fun and have had some difficult times. With the help of the people on this ride and my friends, I have been able to get through those times and I am very grateful for all of it. This will be an adventure that when I’m sitting in the rocking chair when I’m age 90 or so I’ll just sit there and smile and try to remember all of the scenes I’ve seen.