Wurst Ride and Race for the Cure

Last week's Sunday ride had a bunch of new people. When I pulled into the parking lot I noticed a guy sitting on the curb that looked alot like Jud. Turns out it was Jud, and Jesse. They were going to go on the beginner ride but I knew they would be better than that. Turns out Jud is a beast on the bike. During the ride I found out that they were doing the Wurst fest with a couple other people from AMD. I was so syched that I might have somebody to ride with. So last minute I was signed up for the Wurst Ride. For those that don't know, Wurst ride is a metric century that ends at a party next to WurstFest.

We met up at AMD since the ride started right across the street from AMD. The final group was Paul C., Jud, Jesse, and me. John and his wife Jody met up with us but weren't part of the ride back. We started out feeling great, the weather was perfect. There were a couple of hills but nothing killer. We stayed together pretty well up to the first rest stop. I was slightly behind Jud and Paul and Jesse was just behind me. When we set out from the first rest stop Paul left first but thought that he was behind us so he kept riding as fast as he could to catch up. We were trying to catch up to him but at mile 15 Jud took a pretty bad spill (11 stitches after the race). I fell trying not to run over him and scraped up my knee pretty badly. Paul was way ahead of us at this point.

We all met up again at the second rest stop where Jud and I got cleaned up. We were at the rest stop for an extra long time and getting back on the bike was hard. We decided to skip the 3rd rest stop to keep our legs going. When we set out from rest stop 2 we all stayed together for the first couple of miles. We left Jon and Jody about half way to rest stop 3. We lost Jesse slightly just before rest top 3 so we rolled through rest stop 3 to let Jesse catch up. After that Jud and Paul took off and I spent the next 12 miles somewhere in between Jud and Paul and Jessie. At the 4th rest stop we were all feeling the effects but were really happy with our overall time. We stopped to take a look at Jud's wounds and joke that he was still kicking our ass.

We left rest stop 4 together but, again, I could only keep up with Jud and Paul for about 4 miles, even through a random off-road trip and rickety bridge. I was feeling the affects and could not catch them. Jesse was behind me somewhere but I'm not sure how far. The 5th rest stop was up an on ramp and I swear I slowed to 5 miles an hour up that ramp. The stop felt good though. I got up the ramp and found Paul and Jud enjoying snacks already. We waited on Jesse while I tried to down some bananas to ease the cramping I was beginning to feel but couldn't bring myself to eat more than a half of one.

After that stop I was feeling really good and the rest of the ride was relatively down hill. Paul and Jud were machines and as much as I wanted to take over the lead spot for a while, I just couldn't find the energy. As we reached the city and the roads twisted and turned we were laughing and having a great time. Jesse was just a little behind us but we could see on our watches that we were going to come in at under 4 hours of ride time so we opted to finish without Jessie and wait up for him.

Final Ride Stats
Total Time 3:55:18
Ride Time 3:57:12
Distance: 61.69 (not quite a metric century)
Ave Speed: 15.7 mph

The party was pretty cool except for the horrible announcer. There was plenty of food and beer. I had one sausage but no beer. We checked out Wurst Fest afterwards but not being a huge fan of meet on a stick I was not enthralled with it. We talked for about an hour before realizing we were all ready for a long nap. We headed back to the car and home. It was an awesome day and we were all so happy we did it.

The next morning I woke up to hit the Race for the Cure. Kat couldn't run because she got sick a few days before so I was on my own. I spent as much time as possible stretching because my legs were still stiff. I started out fast hoping I could wake my legs up and get through it. Around the half mile mark I hear somebody behind me. Turns out that Paul somehow spotted me in the sea of 4000 timed runners. We ran together the whole way. I know Paul was pushing me to go just slightly faster than I would have otherwise and I'm pretty sure I was doing the same for him. We pulled into the finish at 26:50 putting my pace at 8:36 min/mile, second best ever.

I wish every weekend could be this good.