8.10.2011

RAGBRAI Day 2

We woke our sore butts up at 6:00 to eat our usual breakfast of bagels w/ nutella and a banana!  Again, we attempted to leave by 7:00, got on the road by 7:22.  The ride was from Grinnell to Coralville, 74.9 miles and 2,681 feet to climb.  I figured, it's not as hilly because the day before was 20 less miles and almost 600 more feet to climb.  And it's true, we did have many more flat miles this day.

We started off the day pedaling to Brooklyn, which was 14.5 miles away.  Luckily, it was still pretty early and didn't feel too hot yet.  It was college spirit day, so I wore my ISU basketball jersey, which proved to be like a greenhouse, letting all kinds of heat in, but not letting any out!  Never, NEVER will I wear that biking again!  But anyway, we got to Brooklyn which is this cute little town with a TON of American flags; it's what they're known for I guess.  It was also a very Christian town, handing out salvation bracelets and the band was playing Christian music.  It was no big deal, but it wasn't exactly the motivator we were needing that day! 
This guy rode this crazy bike EVERY day of RAGBRAI
Brooklyn, IA
It was only about 9:00 in the morning, not even, and the sun was already getting very hot. The next town, Victor, was 8.2 miles away, so we pushed on to it.  When we got to Victor, my tummy was sending me mixed signals because I didn't feel very good when I woke up, so I didn't eat much of my breakfast, but now I was actually hungry, I think.  So I got a brat in Victor, and Laura enjoyed a Bloody Mary, both were delicious!  We enjoyed our small break in the shade, applied more sunscreen and then headed another 7 miles to Ladora.

It was a flat and I mean FLAT ride to Ladora, which was a super nice break from the hills.  However, with absolutely no shade, the sun was punishing and my tummy couldn't decide if it needed more food or needed to let it out.  On top of that, Laura's poor knee was giving her all kinds of pain.  It was nice Ladora wasn't too far away so we could take another rest and another sunscreen application break!  While in Ladora, we all ate some maid rites, sat in the shade, markered up some peoples legs :) and Brooke made a new friend! A dog of course, lol.

At this point, we evaluated our desire to push through the day, because it was super hot, we were all worried about pushing to hard and not being able to do our 3rd day which was more important to us.  With my stupid stomach and Laura's stupid knee, we decided to push to the next town, Marengo, which was another 7 mile, flat ride away.
When we got to Marengo, the heat had really started to affect us.  My bike computer was reading a heat index of 120 degrees in the direct sun, which is what we were ALWAYS in.  We all talked about it and agreed that we're in this together, is someones hurting, we're sticking with that person.  We also all agreed that we're on vacation and punishing ourselves to the point of exhaustion is not what we're looking for.  We decided it was more important to all of us to save our energy so we can ride the whole day into Davenport the next day, so we took the SAG wagon back to Coralville.
Stupid knee, stupid tummy
Ah well, we tried our best! :)
Brooke was falling asleep on the SAG wagon
We got to Coralville around 3:00, grabbed our stuff and headed for the pool! We went swimming, which was great on our muscles, and showered at the pool.  I was still getting these strange shooting pains in what seemed to be my kidneys, so I took it easy for dinner. After having a light pasta salad and an ear of corn, I was feeling better.  We all walked to this bar and enjoyed some drinky poos.  Laura, Jason, and Ryan wanted to go out in Iowa City, Brooke and I wanted to SLEEP. So we split up.  Brooke and I grabbed some ice cream at Dairy Queen and then walked back to our tents and passed out.
I can't say this was my favorite day of the trip, but I will say it could have been a heck of a lot worse if we had tried to push through and Laura's knee failed her, or we got heat exhaustion, or I did actually end up getting sick.  In the ended, we listened to our bodies, took the break we needed and enjoyed our vacation like we originally intended to!  Plus, we got amped up for the final day, which I will write about in my next post!

SIDE NOTE: Why oh WHY did I not have two water bottle holders installed on my bike?! Dumb dumb dumb...it's on the RAGBRAI 2012 must-have list.

1 comment:

  1. O rough day! But I still wanna do it :) I don't think I realized how much you guys get to stop, I thought you rode the whole 70 miles straight which I know I couldn't do!!

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