My ride was plagued with problems before I even started. The day before I apparently over did it working out, namely the leg curls and presses, and my hamstrings were very very sore. It didn't effect spinning so much but any time I got out of the saddle I was in so much pain I couldn't last more than a few seconds which obviously doesn't bode well for a ride like the Dare. To top that off I got a migraine about 15 miles in which wrecked my performance completely. Luckily they had Advil and Tylenol at each stop but as much of it as I took it never went away until bedtime and the whole. I vomited in my mouth a few times, got pretty dizzy and felt like I was overheating the whole ride and my HR felt like a racing horse on steroids. I had to stop more than once on each of the major climbs and it's a pain in the ass to get clipped back in mid hill but I just had to wait until people passed and went sideways or back down a bit to get pedaling before I could finish the climb and I honestly had to walk up three of the major hills. I felt like quitting several times and then about 1 or 2 miles before Pleasant Ridge I saw white spots and felt like I was going to faint to I stopped suddenly and my girlfriend was right behind me and I didn't signal I was stopping so I made her run into me, she made me take the SAG wagon to the rest stop to wait and get a ride back to the finish. I just laid out at Pleasant Ridge and drank lots of water and cooled down, popped a few more Advil and waited until my girlfriend made it to Pleasant Ridge and decided to finish the ride and felt like I attacked the rest of the hills and finished strong if not very very late at somewhere around 9 hours. So I wouldn't call the ride a success for myself as I walked up a few and the SAG ride skipped about 2 miles of the ride I'm still glad I didn't quit but I do feel bad for slowing my girlfriend down. She was really attacking all of the hills and would often just wait for me at the top as I had to stop a few times, I think she would have finished a hour or two sooner if it wasn't for that. I tried to tell her to go on ahead at her own pace but she wanted to do the ride with me and would rather not worry. I guess my poker face wasn't very good and she could see I wasn't feel well the whole ride.
I do feel a sense of accomplishment but it was a real eye opener for me. I moved to Wisconsin from Florida on January 1st 2008 and due to some personal things that were going on in my life I had a sort of mid-mid life crisis and sold my road bike (the Klein) and the Litespeed I was building up and completely lost interest in "serious" riding. I still commuted by bike on my cruiser but that was about it. It wasn't until this year that I my interest was renewed due to my girlfriend and I got another road bike about 4 months ago but I realize I've been too lackadaisical about training up for this ride. I've done some decent mileage rides but not in any sort of terrain like the DD and I was completely unprepared. Even if I was 100% on Saturday I still would have had a hell of a time getting up those hills. The first 20 miles alone were harder than any century I did back in below sea-level Florida. I had planned on going from the 100k DD to the full Wright Stuff Century but I'm going to scale back to just the 30 mile WSC and do the Bike the Barns and train from there until next year and I'll be ready to tackle the Dairyland Dare again. Maybe even the 300. Not!
Whew, sorry for the extremely long post and giant run on sentences.
I'd also like to say that the majority of riders on the DD were very nice and helpful and extremely courteous and encouraging. There were plenty of hardcore ******bags and I did hear plenty of crap come out of peoples mouths but for the most part the other riders were all great.