Covington Century

Before I get to the recap of a great century ride this past weekend, I want to thank you all for the supportive messages that you left on my last post.  Just an update - Tom is doing great.  Just a few scabs left, but he's back in full speed.  We did find out that his Orbea had more damage than we thought so we laid Boom to rest on Thursday night.  :(  Tom's had fun building up his new tri-bike... a reincarnated TT1 bike from RAAM 2010.  It's pretty sweet.  Second, Buddy is doing great.  We have another blood draw Thursday with the vet.  He loves the new medicine (the fact that I hide it in tuna or chicken I'm sure has something to do with it), but he's been a champ.   And finally, my grandfather passed away last Thursday morning in his sleep.  If you knew my grandfather, he wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him suffering and would have wanted to be with my grandma, and that's exactly what happened.  It's never easy to lose a loved one, especially one as amazing as my grandpa, but we know that he's watching us from above, with his daughter, waiting to be reunited with all of us some day. This was a picture with him from a week a half ago.  So incredibly glad that I was able to tell him that I loved him in person just one last time.

So as you can imagine, the last few weeks have been crazy.  Training has been sketchy (although I'm seeing a pattern here since moving to Georgia as that's fairly common).  Tom and I had signed up for the Covington Century a while ago after being told it's one of the flattest organized centuries out there.  Um... yep, that had Kingery written all over it!  I was pretty apprehensive going into it though.  The longest I had ridden this season was 70 miles, once, and it wasn't pretty.  But I pulled on my big girl panties and got my mental state right.  Plus I knew that I'd be seeing George, Kacie, Karen and Summer so that totally made it more worthwhile.

We got up at 5 Saturday morning and did the typical Kingery-stall.... it goes kind of like this:

5:00 - Alarm buzzes.  Tom groans and turns it off.
5:01 - I roll out of bed, annoyed off that it's time to awake.  Tom doesn't move
5:05 - I tell Tom that we need to get going.  The dogs look at us like we're nuts.
5:06 - We use some choice words to describe how we are feeling about being triathletes.
5:07 - We contimplate quitting.  We long to be back in bed.
5:08 - We grunt and groan some more, then get dressed. 
5:09 - We agree that we won't do this again next year (note, this is the 6th year of Ironman training)
5:10 - We are on our way...

We made the drive to Covington in the dark and as the morning lightened, we notice that it's super cloudy.  Weather says 25-30% chance of rain.  Hopefully it'll just stay cloudy and cool for the day.  We got to the ride sight, registered, get the bikes ready, text my peps, and meet up with Kacie and George.  It's a mass start with a crazy number of yahoos (I swear I'm shocked that there aren't more casualties from organized rides) and for the first 20 miles, Tom tells me he feels like he's going to flip over his handle bars, ala last weekend.  His blood sugars drop.  It's going to be a long day.  We let Kacie go ahead and I work hard to remind him that this is fun, we're together, we chose to do this, etc.  Hum... it's not working.  And then it happens...

The skies open up and for about 35 miles, it pours.  Now I'm not talking sprinkles here and there.  I'm talking pelting rain that stings as it hits your skin. We also miss a turn (where the 66 mile route and the 100 mile route split).  We don't figure this out until 2.5 miles up the road.  Awesome! Tom goes through another very low point, deciding to quit triathlon and never bike again.  Part of me is annoyed, the other part is singing stupid songs like "singing in the rain" in my head.  I mean, really, what can you do?  Around mile 50, it lets up and we both just look at each other and laugh.  We're soaking wet, but the roads are flat, we have food in our bellies, and we're together.  To me, that's what it's all about some days.  We decide to just make the most of it and we do. 

We keep meeting up with Karen and Summer at the aid stations and they make me smile, as always.  On the roads, it's just the two of us, talking about our life and what lies ahead.  We are reminded of Ohio multiple times looking at the countryside, and then reminded that we are in Georgia when we see things like a dead armadillo on the road.  It's the best of everything.

We end the ride strong.  And happy.  I actually felt great and was pleasantly surprised.  I could have kept riding, although the car was a happy sight.  We saw a ton of people transitioning and although I probably should have joined them, I figured the extra five miles of riding that we did made up for the transition run.  Plus I had important things ahead of me that night that I needed to get home for... George's birthday celebration!!!  :) 

I feel like I'm one step closer to my end goal.  And that makes me happy.