3:00AM Ziiiiiiip....Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiip.......ZZZZIIIIIIPPPPP. Some people have definitely woken up to get a good start on the day. Too bad I can hear every move that they make.
4:00AM I’m still awake and someone’s alarm has gone off. They are clearly late for the 3:00AM party that the other 3:00AM partiers have gone off to.
4:06AM Someone must be wearing ear plugs because the alarm is still going off. They are going to be late for their early packing session.
4:07AM I’m about ready to get out of my tent and drag the offending person’s alarm and beat him/her with his/her alarm while it is still going off, but thankfully for them, they figure out how to turn off their alarm.
4:20AM Every bird in the Golden Horseshoe has sat in the tree above our tent and have all decided chirp with each other.
4:40AM All of the seagulls in the Golden Horseshoe have decided to join their cousins in their re-enactment of the Audubon Society’s Greatest Hits.
4:55AM I give up trying to sleep and decide it’s time to get up and take some pictures of the sunrise and grab a tea. There’s a sparse amount of people walking around at this point. Maybe they heard that freakin’ alarm clock as well. Bryan wakes up again and says how energized he is and then falls asleep right after that. He did that all night just to taunt me. At 3:00AM, he said that he couldn’t sleep and then in 2 minutes all I hear are is his deep breathing as he manages to fall asleep almost immediately after uttering the words “...can’t sleep”. What a jerk.
5:50AM The sun is finally rising and I get some good shots of it as it rises over Mohawk. I was sitting enjoying a tea at the time as well. I also took the opportunity to visit the facilities as well, which I was trying to avoid as much as possible. Even that early in the morning, the frequent slam, slam, slam of the port o potty doors were signalling that people were up and recycling was happening. I walked out to the parking lot and managed to find some peace and quiet...less traffic was definitely better. After that, I contemplated even taking a shower in the port o showers, but thought I’d better get back to the tent. I was holding off on eating breaky to see if I could catch up with B so we could eat together – even though there was no one in line, I thought I’d be the nice guy. Of course, I get back to the tent, and the sleeping wonder is nowhere to be found. I walk around a bit, brush my teeth, head back to the tent, hoping he’d be there. Nope. So I start to head back to the food tent to see if I can run into him there, but decide against it and head back to the tent figuring I might as well pack up, cause B is probably taking a shower or something.
Of course, as I’m packing up and getting my gear on, Sleeping Beauty comes back and pronounces that he’s eaten breakfast. Double jerk. I have to find a better group of team mates next year.
So – I finish packing, drop my bag off, and head for breakfast, where of course, all the other suckers who waited in vain for their tent mates while they were eating breakfast shuffled along for grub. Ah well – the line moved quickly and there was a ton of food. Pancakes, strawberry sauce, yoghurt, eggs, and a croissant were devoured pretty quickly, and I headed over to grab my bike. I was starting to cut back on the calories that day as I didn’t think that I could continue to eat the way I was. Of course though, I had to leave room for some BBCCBs. I had two left in my pockets.
6:45AM B and I met in the parking lot, with our bikes and started a little stretching. This time we were at the front of the pack and as we got started, we were out of the gates pretty quickly. It was really great to be out on the roads so early. There was no one else out there except for us. I even took some pictures while I was riding on the roads (probably not the smartest thing to do, but I made sure there was space around us) – I got a great one of B behind me, and a guy riding in a kilt. Crazy.
We rode along a road that had a spectacular view of the lake and below. We even stopped to take some pictures. After that, we boogied. We were averaging around 30km/h coming out of Hamilton.
9:00AM We managed to eat up the 50kms that morning very quickly. Next thing we knew it was pit stop time and we gobbled down the last of the BBCCBs. I called Karen to let her know that we were half way there which surprised the heck out of her. I think she was just waking up or loafing around at that point. I think though that we definitely were not expecting the tough ride we had ahead of us.
We thought that the tough day was day 1 where all of the hills were and day 2 would be a cakewalk. Boy were we wrong. Almost right after that pit stop, was THE toughest hill of the ride for us anyways. The pitstop that we just left was also the lunch station, but we were early for it, so we decided to leave early and forgo lunch. We were figuring that we’d be in Niagara Falls for lunch. That hill after the pit stop killed us! It was only about 1.5 kms long, where the Hamilton climb was 7 kms long, but I’ll bet that the incline was much steeper for the day 2 climb. It was a killer. On the top of the hill there were some little rollers here and there. B was telling me that he wasn’t feeling that great (post ride – he told me he was feeling dizzy and not that great at all), but we continued on. I think that he was pushing himself pretty hard at this point, but we were still riding past our pitstops to refuel.
We were definitely Bonking at this point. Bonking is basically when your body is out of glycogen stores so your energy is coming from your body fat. You’ve basically hit a massive wall when you bonk. To avoid that you’re supposed to keep eating as you ride along, either in nutritional drinks or snacks like peanut butter or carby foods.
10:30AM From here on out the ride was gruelling. We did make another pitstop about 18km or so left in the race. Still though, we didn’t really fuel up like we should have (we didn’t know about the Bonk until after the race). B had an orange and felt much better, and I packed away some nuts and cookies for after the race. We took some time here just to recoup some and then headed off to the finish. It was a really tough 30 minutes to the finish line. We were basically watching our odometers the whole way yelling to each other as big intervals rolled by. We were finally approaching Niagara Falls, and honestly, I can’t quite tell you what I was feeling at that point. Again, I thought that it would be very emotional for me finishing, but I think I was so gassed from the ride that I was a little numb.
11:00AM The finish line. B and I approached and had to make a left hand turn into the finish line. There was another guy waiting there and he squeezed in between Bryan and I, which was disappointing a bit for me. I thought it would have been nice to cross with B, but it wasn’t to me. It’s actually a good thing, because B went through the finish line first, and Karen was waiting there, so she saw B come through and got the camera ready. Then the other guy came through, and that gave Karen enough time to take a picture of me crossing the line. I love that picture.
After that we hung around for a bit, grabbed some food, and chatted with my sister Nina, and my parents who showed up. They actually just missed my finish, but it was nice that they were there anyways. After resting for a bit, B and I got our gear and our bikes and headed off to get our luggage. We figured that we might as well get out of there as the crowds in the area were just growing. It took my parents 45 minutes to get in and parked and the traffic was just getting worse at that point.
We loaded up the car and headed back to Hamilton to the Matheson’s (Alex and Jane’s) where Morty was hanging out for the day. We chatted for a bit – Jane told us about bonking, and we headed out while expressing our gratefulness to them for their hospitality. We were able to rehydrate a bit at Jane’s and headed back home for a dinner date with my parents and my sister.
What an experience. I loved every minute of it and would never trade that experience in for anything. I’m looking forward to next year, riding with a bigger Team Concept and completing my first REAL century.
Awesome...
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