BP MS150 - A great adventure!

Life Goal #26 – Check!

Ok, so I don’t have my life goal’s actually numbered but it was an actual life goal, so yea for checking things off such an important list!!

I am so tired and sore, but I know the story has to be told so I will start from the beginning. Before I begin, let me preface with a few facts that will help as a background:

The MS150 is a two-day bicycle ride to benefit research for Multiple Sclerosis. There is more than one “MS150” in the states, in fact there are quite a few that happen all over the country, though I think that the MS150 ride from Houston to Austin is the biggest and raises the most money (goal is $12 million this year)! We did the BP (sponsor) MS150 from Houston to Austin this past weekend with my company team, and my company has never participated in this event, nor has Curt or myself (the longest we have ever ridden is 38 miles consecutively. To train for this ride, the National MS Society suggests you train for 1060 total miles over a period of 4 months, Curt and I did 86 total - yikes! Curt and I are NOT hard core bicyclist enthusiasts, or we weren’t before Kendyl bought us road bikes for our wedding (we had wanted them for awhile to get into the sport, but we are amateurs)

Ok so here we go – get ready!

Friday night was busy packing and getting everything ready to go for the big weekend. Curt and I were very fortunate to have my mother act as our “official support vehicle” so we packed our lunches (they are provided for the riders but we wanted to make sure we had a back up plan, we are Girl Scouts you know!), got our bikes tuned up, and I even wrote an email to the lady that signed our bandanas – if you don’t know someone with MS that you want to “ride for” they’ll give you one that is signed by someone who has MS, so I emailed her and told her how much inspiration she would provide to us! And she wrote us back (I found out this morning!). We even packed 25 bags of mulch that we were taking to CP & Judy from our Young Life fundraiser, along with their HUGE housewarming gift, so the truck was loaded full! So we got everything ready, had pasta and such for dinner, and got to bed as soon as we could, which didn’t end up being until 10:30 – my goal was 9 p.m.!

So the alarm goes off at 4 a.m. – we have to be ready to go by 4:30 a.m. and make our way down to Katy for the start. All was successful the morning of, got things together, Mom got to our place so we packed some few last things and set out. It was so dark and early out, and yet it was hysterical to see a ton of people out on the road, all with their own bikes and gear all heading to one of two places – start point Tully or Rhodes. At this point I’m feeling a little nervous, but just so ready to get things underway already! This event had been consuming my thoughts and worries for so many months now that I was finally just excited that it had arrived. So we got to the stadium (traffic, everywhere!) and started getting ready. We met up with other team members, and all lined up at the starting line, took some pictures, and waited and waited and waited for the fog to lift. The fog was so heavy that they decided to delay the start by 45 minutes or so, so at 7:57 (I looked at my watch) we finally rolled out and got on our way. There were so many people, and the feeling that I was feeling at this moment was just sheer adrenalin, so we just got into our pace and got going…

The weather was so wonderful and cool, and with the fog and clouds we had a nice start to the morning. By mid morning the sun was peaking through the clouds, and right as we met up with the riders from Tully is when full sun started to break through. When we merged with the Tully riders, all of a sudden things got really crowded, but over time we spaced out naturally again so all was ok.

We stopped for lunch (before actual lunchtime but we were hungry!) and met up with my mom – by this time it was pretty hot out, so we were careful to reapply sunscreen as I could feel myself starting to burn a little on my arms! We ate lunch with her at the truck and relaxed, then started to get geared back up and ready to go (and of course port-a-potty stop – insert these at EVERY breakpoint b/c I had to go all the time)!! After we buttered up, and I went to the restroom for the second time we got on our way. Side note about the port-a-potties… or not them themselves but me using them… turns out that I discovered that I do not really retain water. I ate lots of salty foods, and was working really hard, but everything was running right through me. My mom and everyone else said this was a good thing as it meant I had effectively hydrated myself so my body wasn’t having to suck every drop available, but it was a pain to get those sweaty spandex shorts up and down numerous times throughout the day! Anyway, so on again after lunch for another many-a-mile! After lunch we really got our pace but then started to hit some hills which were a challenge mph-wise for us. I mean we weren’t poking along but this is where the extra training would have come in handy for sure – I kept thinking to myself, if THESE are the hills on Day 1, then WHAT THE HECK will the DREADED Day 2 hills look like b/c no one mentioned Day 1 being difficult at all?! Haha… And an added pain in the rear was that every time I tried to shift into the hardest gear to pedal FAST downhill, my chain would pop off so I had to just not pedal and go as far as I could until we could stop and pop it back on (usually at the bottom of a hill – ugh!). This ended up happening 5 times, and you really need that large gear for momentum and saving your energy, so this was a big hindrance for us on our first day.

But what annoyances we had with my chain and the hills, the scenery more than made up for – WOW it was a gorgeous day and there were just fields and fields of bluebonnets as far as the eye could see!

It was so exciting to go through the small Texas towns, too – people were so great all along the way, too. There would be people out clapping, saying “thank you” and just cheering us on in general, and boy did it help! I especially loved rolling into Fayetteville, Texas – thriving metropolis with population 261, and they were our biggest crowd! It seemed like much of the town came out to play music for us, dance and yell, and they even had bubble blowing machines on two sides of the street for us to ride through – it was GREAT!

I also really enjoyed the riders that had iPods with speakers rigged up on their bikes… I was working hard to keep up with this one guy who had “On the Road Again” playing on his by Willie – gosh I love that song and it does have special meaning to my family and our adventures so I hummed it to myself for a while…

As the afternoon got hotter and the hills got higher, we were getting pretty ready for the ride to be over, but we started to have a nice distraction about 10 miles outside of La Grange when we started to see signs for US!! Curt’s Aunt Heidi and cousin Savannah had made a bunch of signs for us encouraging us along, and then about 7 miles outside of town we saw a truck on the side of the road, and Heidi and Nonnie (Curt’s grandmother) were waiting for us to pass by! So of course we had to pull off and visit (thank goodness for the break!) with them for awhile… it was so much fun! They had some chairs set up in the shade, and told us of the passersby that they had seen so we had lots of fun chatting with them before our last 7 miles in (with THREE huge hills right in a row – just the thing we needed to give us the motivation we needed to get in)!

So after we couldn’t delay any longer, we decided to get our rears back in gear and climb those hills and make our way into La Grange, and all I can say is thank goodness for the “Granny Gear!” We (or at least I) definitely used it but we never got off and walked, which by that time of the day with the heat and the previous 80 miles you’ve already ridden, isn’t such an uncommon thing! So we finally got onto the highway, and completely forgot all of our ailments as we pulled into the Day 1 finish line to lots of cheering people at the La Grange fairgrounds. And what an amazing set up – talk about every corporation in America being present with their huge company tents, personal chefs and masseuses and everything else you could imagine! There were so many people, tons of great music, food, entertainment and of course the massage tent for those of us who didn’t have access to their own personal massage therapists, which I immediately got in line for!! Curt felt alright muscle wise so he only got 10 minutes worth (a dollar a minute) but I was no fool – I went for 30 and it was heaven! My massage therapist was Grace, and she was an older woman but had so much strength it was unbelievable… she started with the two most sore points on my body – each side of my neck (from hanging your head in the very unnatural position for so many hours) and she told me she could relieve a lot of the tension but it would hurt because she would have to use the pressure points. I told her to go for it, and the pain was so great that I swear I saw stars… I was gritting my teeth as the pushed on the pressure point and I could feel surges all the way into my toes – HOLY COW it was painful! But I could immediately feel the relief so I was glad that I gritted through it (she even commented on my pain tolerance – yes I am a tough cookie)! The rest of the massage was joyous – I couldn’t even comprehend how sore my body was already and it was still technically warm and loose – I knew I was in for a doozy later!!

So I finished up and then talked to teammates and visited, and then at about 6:00 p.m. or so we decided we should head out to Curt’s Dad’s place in Giddings for a yummy dinner, hot bath, and a nice comfy bed…

We rolled up to their house at about 7:30 p.m. (after a bathroom break of course for me) and just had such a good time visiting with them. We got our baths/showers and changed into comfy clothes, and then sat down to a WONDERFUL meal. Judy made pasta with homemade marinara, bread, hashbrown casserole, and yummy grilled chicken with a steak for Curt – SO good but I couldn’t even eat that much. My body was not only not hungry, but it was pushing back from the delicious food I was forcing in! I ended up only eating half of what I normally would have eaten and was so disappointed b/c it was so yummy. We talked some more and had lemon bars for dessert (my fave!) and at 9:30 p.m. Curt and I hit the hay as we had to be up again at 5 a.m.

5:00 a.m. came pretty darn quick and again did not feel so hot… but we got ready, had another great meal (scrambled eggs, yummy bacon, and biscuits – umm umm!) that I couldn’t eat as much as I wanted to, and said our thank-yous and goodbyes and got on our way… it was fun getting closer and seeing those that had stayed on the outskirts riding in and I was so nervous – another day, how in the world were we going to do this?! I was also really nervous about this legendary downhill that people kept talking about where you could get up to 40 mph, and then somehow not getting caught in the challenge course and finding our way to the lunch express route!

It was another foggy and cloudy morning, so we got on our way at 7:45 a.m. in the overcast weather and my body was not happy with me. The first 20 miles or so were tough – I felt like I was working so hard and we weren’t going very fast at all! It was frustrating and I was worried at what the rest of the day would look like if things continued… as I got more Goo and Gatorade in me, it seemed as if my energy was picking up… then we got to the big downhill and omg it was incredible. My nerves flew out the window and I got into a tuck and let out a primal yell as it was just such a rush and so exhilarating. We were going so fast that tears were streaming out to the sides of my face, but I did put my brakes on as there were others around me (with me screaming LEFT!) and it curved to the right at the end and out of view, so I didn’t want to crash going who knows how many miles an hour… which Curt told me when we got down that we were up to 37 mph on his computer – WHOA!!! It was so awesome and we just loved it and laughed together when we were finished. YES!

I can’t remember when this was in the day (I think before lunch) but there was ANOTHER huge downhill that was so fun I was just giddy, but this time you could see the biggest hill in front of you which was such a spoiler – this hill was a killer for lots of folks, but we pushed and pushed and finally got up it (and were moving faster than the many cars that were stuck in traffic beside us which I’m sure was frustrating for them)!

So as my energy was increasing our speed was as well and by the time we pulled into lunch I was feeling pretty good! We met up with my mom (she saw us roll in) and we also saw Luke and Damon and invited them to come and eat with us at the truck, so we had a nice lunch together eating sandwiches, chips, and lemon bars with Gatorade – yum! They had gone through the state park (challenge course) and I knew we made the right decision b/c these guys are the best on our team averaging over 20 mph on a regular basis, and at one point on the hills THEY were going less than 3 mph which is almost fall over off your bike speed… if that was them, I’m pretty sure I would have been walking or furious in my granny gear… maybe next year if we get a chance to train more!

So they had to get going as they wanted to beat other members of our team, and Curt and I headed back to the port-a-potties, reapplied butter, chapstick, etc. and got on our way about 15 minutes later, and the closer we got to Austin the faster we kept going! Curt even said he started having a hard time keeping up with me because he was starting to feel pain (he took 4 Aleve before 2 p.m.!) and I just kept feeling better and better – we ended up in the last 20-30 miles averaging 19-20 mph with me just pushing harder as we got closer (I just wanted to be finished!) It was hysterical though as we got closer and closer and checking how many miles between the next breakpoint and how many total, etc. and how HARD it was to do simple math like 11+12+8 is how many miles left?? And we both decided it was interesting how when your body is so tested physically that things like math really do not matter, only elements directly related to survival matter to the brain in moments like these – was at first frustrating that simple math took more than the normal 2 seconds, but then really funny because it persisted over other areas!


So we just focused on getting to the next breakpoint, and the most frustrating thing of the ENTIRE weekend was the little yellow signs that said “3 miles to the next breakpoint.” These killed me because it always seemed that after you saw these signs, it would take a century to get to the next breakpoint and you would wonder how it was even possible that you hadn’t gone three miles yet?? I think I would have rathered that those not been there – haha!

The last breakpoint was actually the Baker Hughes sponsored breakpoint, so we did our business there (the routine became, bathroom, oranges, bananas, Gatorade, any reapplications necessary, eat your Goo, and get on the bike) and were so excited to just have 11 or so miles left, but then we had some massive hills, and TONS of traffic (both bikes and cars) with stop lights that seemed to stop us every mile or so, I just so wanted to get in there! I even got kind of in trouble by one of the ride marshals, but only because I am such a Lance Armstrong on the downhills! I know it sounds kind of silly and intuitive, but really we soon found out that I was a stud on the downhills, and that we lacked on the up hills… and I’m being dead serious, I could beat the best of them going downhill (even without extra weight) but about half of who I had just sped by would beat me on the uphill – lol! I am not sure why Curt and I were so good on the downs, but on this last stretch there were just so many people and I needed all the momentum I could get so I went outside of the cones into our “cushion” lane to pass by the hundreds of people at break neck speeds! Curt has a rearview mirror on his helmet, so he would frequently shout that we were still clear in the back, but apparently a ride marshal didn’t want us out there, period, but the quarters were just so close inside the cones!! So I eventually tucked back in but I got as far as I could without being unsafe on the outside, and we did a good job.

At one point it was so disheartening to see the Austin skyline when I thought we should be really close, and it still looked so far away!! Ugh – I thought we only had 5 miles left or so! Turns out that on a bike you really can cover some ground, and before I knew it we were coming into t.u.’s campus and all smiles knowing we were almost there! We turned a corner and saw a massive finish line in front of us, and Curt and I gave a soft high five and went in for the glory, and glorious it was… soon after we crossed the finish line I saw Mom on the side with her sign, and I was just so overjoyed that we had done it… what a great feeling!

We dismounted and changed our shoes (Mom had brought them) and proceeded to go pick up our certificates and pins, and take some pictures and enjoy the moment. After checking out the tents, we found another restroom and started to get ready for the journey home. While at the port-a-potties, we heard this screaming and looked to see a poor raccoon bolting across the street (middle of the city, guys, was so weird in the middle of the day)! It ran across the intersection (through tons of people) and then decided to turn back so ran back and hid under some dumpsters – I bet it was scared out of its mind with all of the loud music, and noises, etc but it was pretty comical!

Then to the parking garage to pack up, and then I got cleaned up with a sock and water (next year we will bring towels) and then settled in to sleep and revel in our accomplishment on the way back to Houston…

What an awesome weekend. Curt and I mentioned that it would be so cool on Monday to ask people what they did over the weekend, and then when they asked us how awesome it would be to say, “eh, I rode over 150 miles on a bicycle to help battle a horrible disease!”

Enjoy the pics!

Love,
Tasha xx