STP is over! And I finished it. IN ONE DAYYYYYYYY.
Here is my recap which is probably riddled with typos as I am still a little delirious from the craziness.
I spent the night at my friends house in Sacramento on Wednesday. We left Sacramento at 8am on Thursday. I realized there would be a lot of cat herding with this group, but whatever. There were four of us doing the ride so we took two cars for all the bikes. The car ride was brutal (very traffic-y in Portland and Seattle) and we didn't get to the hotel until 10:15 that night. Fortunately, I brought my walkie talkies so we could communicate with each other during the ride. We went to a restaurant/bar for food because it was the only place in walking distance of our Seattle hotel that was open. They had happy hour so all the apps were 1/2 off. I don't what we were thinking, but we ordered tons of cheesy fatty delicious apps and had a couple beers. Hello? Wasn't Seattle to Portland in two days? I think we were in denial. We got back to our hotel room at 12:30 am (!) and went to sleep at 1:30. Who did I think I was? A 20-something-year-old? Sheesh.
We rolled out of bed around 8 and stumbled to the lackluster continental breakfast buffet at the hotel and drank some weak coffee flavored water. We then went across the street to Starbucks to recharge. We got back to the hotel room and started the packing for the ride. That was when the reality of what we were going to do set in as we giggled nervously putting our energy gels in bento boxes and packed our overnight bag that we would drop off at the start.
We then headed to downtown Seattle to do at least one touristy thing and went on the Underground Tour (it was cool, though I would have preferred stopping in some of the cute stores. And THAT is why I am a diva.) We were back to our hotel area in time for an early pasta dinner and were in bed by 8:30. Our alarms went off at 3(!) and we shoved some breakfast in our mouths, drank coffee,packed up our gear and bikes, and drove to the start at University of Washington. What is amazing is it didn't feel like a 10,000 person event, but perhaps that is because the one day people had an earlier start and left in waves. They estimate only 2500 of the participants do the one day event. We rolled out at 5 am and it wasn't as chaotic as I anticipated. The first 15 miles were beautiful. We rode around the bay as the sun was rising and I though to myself, "this would be a great place to live." Then we were on a less scenic more commercial part, which was fine. Before I knew it, we were at the first rest stop. I decided to not stop because it looked crowded and my pace felt great. I ate a gu (Vanilla-YUCK!) and drank some gatorade. At one point we hit a stoplight at a major intersection and I looked behind me and saw hundreds of cyclists. I felt like I was having lunch at the cool kids table. It was super cool.
I stopped at the second rest stop for a potty break. I spotted a man wearing La Dolce Velo bike shorts and I said, "Are you from California? I am too! I go to Dolce Velo sometimes. I am friends with Rob and Jaquie on Facebook! They are cool!" (um, did I mention I had a big coffee at the 24 hour starbucks on the way to University of Washington?) I hopped on my bike and checked the time. I had ridden straight for 41 miles in 2 hours 45 minutes. Not too shabby.
The next 30 miles were a blur. I was very amused by all the signs for small business in these itty bitty towns. One business had a sign advertising tanning AND saw sharpening. Some of the cars were aggro, but that is typical for big rides like this. On one busy road traffic was coming to a stop and I saw two fire trucks in the middle of the road. I rode slowly past and saw a girl on a gurney on the ground and two fire fighters surrounding her and talking to her. It was a very solemn moment and it made me realize I need to be extra careful on the ride. At around mile 83 we went on a bike path. Phew, right? That would be nice and safe. WRONG. My theory is people turned their brains off when they got on the path because they didn't have to deal with cars. I witnessed two separate instances where bikes crashed into each other and passed two people on there backs who must have crashed. YIKES. There was a rest stop at the end of the path with REAL BATHROOMS and snickerdoodle cookies. It was like Christmas. I felt bad for a guy who was walking on the grass and yelled, "Ew! Dog poop in my cleats!" But it was kind of funny. Oh, also on the path I accidentally knocked off my headlamp and rolled over it. As I heard the crunching noise I thought naively, "Well, I will be done before dark, right?" BWA HA HA.
Finally I made it to halfway point. 100 miles in a little under 7 hours of riding! Whoo hoo. I had a sandwich and drank some chocolate milk and hopped back on my bike. Oops...my stomach lurched a little. To quote Anchorman: "Milk was a bad choice." The next 30 miles were gorgeous as we were surrounded by trees and creeks. The Pacific Northwest is so gorgeous. I stopped at another rest stop and chatted with some fellow riders (I didn't ride with my friends as we are all different speeds). They asked me how far I was going (some people stop at mile 100, some at mile 150) and I said allegedly all the way. They seemed concerned that I was by myself, but I said, "I'm fine. It's alllll good." They were stopping at mile 150.
Around mile 140ish I started getting nervous because I knew THE BRIDGE was coming. Finally I saw the signs for Lewis and Clark Bridge and took a deep breath to brace myself. This is a major bridge with lots of traffic that connects Washington to Oregon. There isn't a separate area for cyclists, just a bike lane where if you made one wrong move into the lane next to you, you would be toast because of the cars going so fast. Oh yeah, did I mention it was uphill? It was a mile long and awful. I didn't think it could get any worse until I reached the top and realized I had to go downhill. EEEEK! I finally made it across the bridge and stopped at a gas station to get some food, water, and 7up for my nervous tummy. By this time it was 6:30ish and I had 50 miles left. I called Dennis to check in and told him about the headlamp breaking. I could tell that freaked him out a little even though he sounded calm on the phone. I got back on my bike and braced myself for the next 50 miles.
The next 40 miles were on an awful, busy highway. I started to fall apart. It hurt sitting on my bike seat. My feet were numb. There were rolling hills and cars swooping past me. As the sun started setting I had a feeling that I didn't think I could finish the ride. At this point I was pretty much all alone on the road, except for a few times when two or three cyclists would pass me. I just wanted to be home with my cuddly kitty and my hubby. At around 8:45 I passed a woman and asked her if she wanted to ride with me. She gratefully said yes and I told her she should ride in front because she had a front light and I had a back light. Two other riders joined our little wolf pack and we rode into the night. It got pitch black out there and I was on the verge of a panic attack. But we made it to Portland, went over another bridge (luckily it was a pedestrian/bike only bridge and it was amazing to ride over the water at night). We went through a hip section of downtown and drunk people cheered us on. Finally the finish line was there! They were supposed to close the finish line at 9, but some volunteers stayed around to give us our patches. It was 11pm! Holy Mole. I stumbled to my hotel in a daze. My friend LaRee got in around 8:00pm so she was already at the hotel Our friend Nancy had to get a hotel room at mile 140 because she got four flats on her ride and didn't want to risk getting a flat in the dark. Jason was already asleep on the rollaway bed in our hotel . He called a cab at mile 170 to get him. I took an ice bath, tried to eat some food, but just didn't have the energy to to chew. Laree and I watched bad tv and discussed our adventures. We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, and headed to the finish line to cheer Nancy on. She called us when she was a couple miles away from the finish because she got another flat and ran out of CO2. Fortunately someone gave her a cartridge and she was at the finish in no time flat. We were together again!
So, we hopped on a shuttle back back to Seattle that took us 5 1/2 hours, ate at the Indian Restaurant at our hotel, woke up by 5 and hit the road to go back home. I got back at 11pm last night. Fatigue is starting to hit now.
All in all, I am glad I did it. I am glad I finished something that I couldn't even picture completing. Would I do it again? Maybe. But only if I flew and took more time to explore Portland or Seattle.
