Roll out from Redmond at 5:30am and drive an hour to Orting. By then, it's getting light and the sun is breaking through the clouds. The forecast kept pushing the rain back more and more, so we didn't get wet. keithm0 and I met East Hill in the parking lot and headed off to register. No numbers, no free shirts; just a mesh slingpack and a "fill-it-in-yourself" wristband with an emergency contact number. No biggie, it was only $16.00 to register, which by far is one of the least expensive registrations I've seen for a club ride. Met bengeboy at the registration line. Took our final pit-stops, double checked out gear, and got rolling.
The start pace was slow because East Hill was having problems with her RD. After 8 miles I pulled ahead and shortly after keithm0 started chase and caught me at the first rest stop. We took a quick break, had some food and a pit-stop, and were on our way. The food was good and the toilets were clean and plentiful, so I won't disparage the fact that there were no free shirts. I'll take a clean bathroom with no line over a free shirt and a solitary, full to the brim port-o-john any day.
keithm0 and I kept the pace to a reasonable 14.5 - 15mph for the rest of the 61 mile loop, except for the chipseal sections. There was a butt-ton of chipseal. Holy hell. Turn left onto Crackhammer Ave. Make a right on Nadrattler Way. Take Repreive Rd. for 2 miles of smooth pavement then turn onto Taintpuncher Blvd for a 20 mile section of chipsealed logging road.
We finished up the 61 mile loop and I felt great, so I dragged keithm0 on the 40.5 with me. He was reluctant at first (probably because as he rolled into the finish only 2 - 3 minutes behind me, I jokingly said "Fuel up and roll 'em out!") I was over-ambitious and set out at 15.5 - 16mph. There was a gnarly climb out of a river valley at the 73 mile mark, and that started to do me in... with 28 miles left to go. Ugh.
We were hauling along until just before the midpoint rest stop, when my quads started hurting. Not cramping, but those crummy pre-crampular twitchings. I sucked back a couple of redskin tater slices with a bunch of Johnny's seasoning salt, washed it down with some more Accelerade watered down with Gatorade (horrible combo, BTW) and off we went. There were a few more sections of chipseal, and some rolling up and downs to make sure that my legs never got a good long rest. We kept cranking along, cracking jokes to stay sane since we were starting to hurt around the 90 mile mark. At 98 miles, there was an insane hill. It was steep and winding, and we were so burned out (well, at least I was; keithm0 was doing much better, or at least hiding it better than me) at that point that we just didn't care any more. Holy cow, we hammered up it and there was a nice roll-out on the other side, and not much of any uphill sections afterwards. While it would have been nice to roll across the finish line, we already had our 100+ in for the day when we reached our cars which were in a parking lot about 0.5 miles from the 'official' start/finish line, so we rolled into the lot and packed it in for the day.
Big thanks to keithm0 for keeping me going the last 15 miles. I might have packed it in and caught a SAG if it wasn't for you pulling me on those last couple of hills.
It was great meeting East Hill, bengeboy, John (from SIR, whose name on BF I can't remember,) and keithm0's friend from the McClinchy ride (who will be joining BF soon, but I can't remember her name either.) Hopefully I'll be seeing everyone at Flying Wheels and 7 Hills of Kirkland.
103.36 miles
7:15:05 rolling time
8:15:00 total time