August 13th, 2016

Dear Diary,

Let’s be honest, the pretense of my writing a diary is shot at this point. It barely lasted through the first day. Now there is no way it was going to last through this post. But at least I tired. I stayed committed even though I didn’t want to  be.

Well ride day has come and the excitement I haven’t seen when it comes to riding in a long time, has appeared. I guess this is a good thing. Got up early and hopped in the shower and got ready for the ride. I

After that was breakfast. Yay, food. Not as good as the cheese curds.

After breakfast I set my basal rates and got ready to kick off the ride. Man it was early.

Yep, that was me the morning of the ride. I looked so happy and graceful. Honestly, I met both of those expectations this time. The ride starts easily enough, I think it’s because I remembered to stretch, huge different. As the ride begins we broke off into different start groups, so that all 330 of us were not riding off at once.

I felt good, at this point I was convinced that I was going to do more than I had planned on doing originally. I wasn’t rushing myself to do the full loop. After the start things do become a blur, not in a bad way, it’s a bunch of riding, but also riding with people you know or don’t know, chatting or just riding.

I hit the first break point faster than I had anticipated refilled my supplies, stretched, chatted with some people and started to head out again. Once again I was with a different group of people, but we eventually separated and continued on the ride.

Break point 2 fast approached, got more water, took care of some things, had some electrolytes and pickles and pickle juice, disgusting but good. At this point I considered how I was feeling and decided to press on to break point 3. The ride was still good, I really hit my stride in Iowa.

See I’m still happy and still judgemental. At this point I was at 42ish miles and I had to make the choice to continue in the loop or not. After careful consideration of my body, my legs felt fine, I think I could have handled the hills, but other parts of me were starting to act up. So I decided to partner up with another rider and start heading back.

The was a good decision, Peggy and I chatted most of the way, but I lost her a few times as she was moving a lot slower than I was, and would slow down periodically. I never intentionally left her behind, but sometimes my pace on the “hills” left her behind. So as we got closer to the remaining break points, she would yell at me to go ahead and she would catch up. That worked for me.

The ride back was slightly rough, the tail wind we had on the way out was now a headwind on the way back. That added up, but honestly I felt cool because of the wind. The last 10 miles of this ride are the worst, because there are road signs for La Crescent, Minnesota and La Crosse, Wisconsin so you knew how much riding you had left. I swear the bridge over the Mississippi which was so easy on the way out, now was the biggest challenge to face. At this point I was riding with Tracy, who I had breakfast with the day prior and we crossed the finish line together.

That was it, they yell our names, they are clapping, and cheering us on. They give you a medal, which is hanging on my door, and you get to stop riding. That was the best part, well that and the ice cream sandwich.

All in all the ride was good, no major issues, I felt great at the end, well 95% of me did, my tail ed was not happy with me in the least. That was a pain in the ass…. HAHAHA. but seriously, it hurt.

Things that were great is once again with testing dealing with and changing my basal rates along the way, I started and ended where I needed to be.

My morning low had me thrown off because I went to bed at 185 and I adjusted. Apparently, my body decided to metabolize my insulin differently this time. It is what it is. I am just glad to have done this ride.

As I said earlier my desire to ride was at a low before the ride, however, things are different. I think truly it is because I made the ride about the ride and not about NEEDING to do the full 100. Once blue makes it back from La Crosse we have a date. And I am happy about that.

So on that note, diary I am done with you, I am never going to write to you again. At least I will need to be on something to decide to write diary style again.

On that note I am done finished writing.

Good Bye diary and world.

Brian