Capital to Capital Race Report

That's me and Scouter. In our defense, we didn't know that Richard was taking the picture when he did. I think we needed a re-do. We really were happy...

We were well prepared for our race today. Last night, we both had pasta. I had a wonderful blackened chicken penne with mushrooms, red & green peppers, and onion at Nordstrom Cafe with Rainbow while Taz was at a birthday party. Scouter had noodles with Ragu at home. Poor guy! I was in bed by 9:30 for the third Friday night in a row. I'm seriously getting worried about myself! I need a girls night next Friday or something!!!! (Rebekah?)

On any given Saturday morning, Taz is up between 5:30 and 6:00. Pretty much since he was.... um, zero. His whole life. This morning, since we needed him to get up early, I was prying his little butt out of bed at 7:00, promising that he could go back to sleep once we got to Grandma's house. We finally managed to get everything together, dropped off the kids, and headed to Dorey Park. We met Richard out there, and I was very excited to finally meet JRo! She is so friendly and has the prettiest blue eyes.

This is the first time that Scouter and I have ever ridden together, and I was very excited. I warned him on the way that he would think I was dying the first five miles. Seriously, the first mile of a run and the first five miles of a bike, my body does everything it can to convince me otherwise. Finally, after a battle, it accepts the fact that we're really going to do this thing.

Richard, Scouter and I started riding around 8:30. This event wasn't huge - a few hundred people - but with starts at both ends (Richmond and Jamestown) and a two hour window in which to start, we were pretty spread out. We saw a few other groups of riders but really not that many.

There were some rolling hills at the beginning. Around 10 miles, I was thinking, OMG I'm only 1/5th of the way done. Can I do this? About that time, we realized we had missed a turn and had to double back a mile or so. We were all riding together well. I was in the front, which I dislike, but I figured it was good because then they couldn't drop me. After we got back on the route, Scouter took the lead. That man has got some hot legs and a very cute butt. I'm just sayin'.

Route 5 is a beautiful ride. Unfortunately, the pavement on the side of the road we were riding was ripped up. We teased Richard a bit because he had told us what a nice smooth ride it was. We hit the first support station around the 15 mile point for us, stopped and had a drink, then kept hitting it. The route was pretty flat from there until the mid-point in Charles City.

The mid-point was well stocked with lunch and plenty of friendly volunteers. We met up with JRo again and had lunch together. It was only 10:30, but we were all pretty hungry. Scouter and I chowed on barbecue; Richard and JRo made what I can only assume was a wiser selection and had veggie burgers. I'll leave it at this - BBQ at the mid-point was not a good call for me and I paid for it the rest of the day.

Richard had originally planned to ride the full century, but the weather was not looking too cooperative. He decided to make the turn with us and head back to Richmond. A very wise move, as we will soon learn...

After our lunch break, I was freezing. It took me a good five miles to get warm again. The route back to the support station was a different and equally pleasant ride. We clocked ~38 miles at the rest stop and knew our ride was going to be closer to 55 than 50. Officially, the longest I'd ever ridden.

At about mile 44, we started noticing sprinkles. Well, either that, we joked, or our lead dog Scouter was sweating profusely. Not likely - it was definitely cool. Very quickly, it was pouring. The last 10 miles were absolutely miserable. We were freezing, couldn't see jack, and were riding through puddles in traffic. Conditions were particularly lovely when a car flew by and sprayed us with road water. I could feel cold rain pouring in my shoes and down my back. We picked up the pace.

After what felt like hours, we finally hit Darbytown Road, on which Dorey Park lies. We were riding down Darbytown for awhile in a lot of traffic when suddenly Richard stopped right in front of me. I almost hit him, screamed like a girl, but fortunately didn't. He said he thought we might have turned the wrong way at the last intersection. We decided, uncertainly, with more hope than conviction, that we hadn't and kept going. Finally, finally, we reached the entrance to Dorey Park and headed down the last mile to our cars. Whew! I have never been so relieved for a ride to be over. Well, maybe... Blue Ridge comes to mind... but anyway you get my point.

By then, our clothes were completely soaked, my lips were blue and teeth were chattering. I stripped down to my sports bra by the car to put on the (dry!) race tee shirt we'd been given - which is a cool tee by the way - and my dry sweatshirt that I'd left behind. Still, I froze in the car the whole way home. Scouter and I have way different heating needs. We struck a livable medium where I wasn't going into hypothermia and he wasn't sweating. I ran to the shower as soon as we got home and didn't come out for a very long while.

Race stats: The first 28 miles - 16.6 mph average; entire 54.5 miles - 16.2.

I would definitely do this ride again, but lesson learned - if the forecast calls for rain, I may reconsider.