The MS ride was especially significant for us this year. Not only did this mark the one year anniversary of our participation in organized cycling events, the one that got us into what we now love so much, but Suzanne came out from Georgia to be involved and support her team. This is The Suzy Q’s second year with the MS Ride – we are named after Suzanne who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the year 2000. Megan joined the Suzy Q’s this year! This marked her first organized ride.
We picked Suzanne and Sherry up from the airport and headed up to Logan. Rosella was already there and it was a great little family reunion! We went down to the fairgrounds on Friday night. We checked in, got our jerseys (yes, we all raised $600 and got a free MS Jersey!) and our t-shirts. We checked out all the booths …
On Saturday morning, we went down to the fairgrounds early. We wanted to eat breakfast there and we were scheduled for a 6:30 am team photo. We got several shots with the team and Suzy. What a neat way to start the day!
We lined up with the thousands of riders that morning. Suzy, Rosella, Lauren, Erin and Sherry were on the sidelines cheering us on! We were in the 3rd or 4th wave that left the fairgrounds. It is so exciting to ride out with such a large group, you pick up the energy and enthusiasm of everyone around you and it really pumps you up!
Our full team rode together for the first 12 miles. Then, Carolyn and I headed out ahead of the others. We were riding the full century, so we needed every minute. The rest of the team rode 40, just like we all did last year.
The first 40 miles was a breeze! Literally, we had a strong tail wind that pushed us at 20 miles per hour or so. We thought we were going to break our fastest century time of 8 hours. Well, that didn’t last for long. At about 40 miles we turned a corner and hit a wall of wind that made it nearly impossible to ride. We dropped from 20 to about 9 mph.
We pushed through this wind for the next 7 hours. We were riding slower than we ever had before. We stopped about every 10 miles; the mental and physical exertion was almost more than we could take. We pushed on until mile 88… then, in tears, we called Mike to come pick us up. We just couldn’t do any more. Throwing in the towel wasn’t easy! We knew that Suzy was waiting for us at the finish line. But after calculating our speed, and the wind and the heat was only getting worse, we knew it was for the best. Mike dropped us off a couple miles from the finish line so we could ride over on our bikes. Everyone was there waiting for us and they screamed and yelled as we came in. We only rode 90 out of the 100 miles that day, but we were still proud of our accomplishment. It was definitely the most strenuous conditions we have ever ridden in. Suzy told us how proud she was of us. Having her there made it all worth it!
This was a very difficult ride. On the pavement, the temperatures reached 103 degrees. There was also a strong headwind the last half of the ride with gusts as strong as 25 mph.
We went to the awards ceremony together that night, ate dinner and relaxed after such a difficult ride.
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