Bay Country Half-Century (...almost...)

Instead of joining our Team in Training team on Saturday on the W&OD Trail, Doug and I decided to get out of town to Maryland. We thought it would be fun to do our first organized ride, and registered for the Bay Country Century. When we headed out, we intended to do the quarter-century (25-miles), but by the time we arrived, we realized we had been doing 30-mile rides for a bit, and we decided to challenge ourselves and started out with the half-century (50-mile) cue sheet.

It was a beautiful ride. Unfortunately the first 20 miles was all hills! Now I'm the first to admit that I'm not in the best of cardiovascular shape...but lord were those hills HARD! Up and down for about a hour and a half. When we'd hit a flat spot we'd look at each other and say what the heck did we do!

By the time we hit the 32-mile mark, which was a great rest stop in North Beach, MD right on the Chesapeake Bay, there was music, snacks, and a bit of time to relax before continuing on. About that time we realized how exhausted we were. The best part of Team in Training is that when you're out there in the shirts you encounter people of all walks of life that are currently training for a bike ride, a triathlon, or alumni of a ride. We started chatting with one of these wonderful people at the North Beach rest stop, and he kindly gave us the cue sheet for the 25-mile ride, which would mean we only had 12 miles to go, instead of 20! So here we are, looking happy (please ignore the flat bike-helmet hair!) that we only have 12-miles to go:

Of course, right after we left the rest stop, Doug got a flat, and there were a couple of brutal long hills on the way back, but we can say we have done almost half of the ride that we will have in Tucson come November. So we patted eachother on the back, and went home and ate a HUGE pot of spaghetti with meat sauce to celebrate!