Saturday was my Bike Club’s century. The route is a great one, it winds through Hillsboro to Forest Grove (first stop, Maggie’s Buns, oh HELL yes), then around Hagg Lake, down Old Hwy 47 through Yamhill County (I LOVE this ride), up the back side of Bald Peak, and back. It was a bit wet and misty most of the morning, but cleared up and was sunny and beautiful the last few hours.
Unfortunately I am an idiot. Wednesday night I went on that hard 40 mile ride, then Thursday that 2 hour Forest Park ride…so after about 30 miles of the century, BAM! My muscles reminded me that I am a complete moron. ..I thought I was going to have to be picked up by the saag van. When we started around Hagg Lake, my group totally dropped me, and I just died. I TT’d around Hagg Lake fairly slowly and ended up meeting up with the 19s at the 2nd rest stop in Gaston. Thankfully the real 19s are much slower than the faker 19s. So despite the intense leg pain I could easily keep up. In fact I rode with them until the 2nd rest stop at mile 70, and despite the fact that the course between the 2nd and 3rd rest stops was up bald peak, by the time I got there I felt fine again.
At the 2nd stop I also caught up with some of the people I was originally riding with, so that felt pretty good 
We rode back and I actually ended up pulling the group quite a bit, because I saved so much energy in the middle section while my legs were hurting.
It was a real mental challenge, this one. It’s so hard to be 1/3 of the way thru a ride like that, thinking that you can’t possibly ride another mile. But I pushed through it. I just kept going, just thinking that “it’s just pain.” I was SO mad at myself, and I couldn’t stop rationalizing it in my head…I felt embarrassed. I kept imagining myself telling people why I went so slow, over and over in my head. It was making me really mad that I couldn’t stop thinking about it…so I just mentally struggled with myself for like an hour. Ugh. But when I rode with the 19s, I felt way better. It’s amazing how hard it is to take it slow…I’m proud of myself, that I stuck with it and just rode.
Total riding time: 5hours 20minutes. Photos from Heidi:
Photo 1
Photo 2
