kellita the señorita the ibby dibby dow: 88 and then some

Yesterday was the longest ride I've done to date. It was cue sheeted for 88 miles, which I did, plus another 10-ish. Let's start at the very beginning.

Woke up yesterday morning, feeling great and ready for the ride (the only complaint was that my stomach/digestive system hasn't been working totally normally, so it felt like I weighed about 300 lbs). Did some yoga to stretch my old-ass body, and was ready to take on the long day. The first half of the day was easy...perfect weather, not too hilly.

We met a man in a little town named Thomas, and his dog, Sparky. He is a street magician, and asked if we wanted to see some magic tricks. The obvious answer to this question was yes, of course we wanted to see some. He showed us a few tricks, and then said that if he could pull off another trick, "this will be my greatest feat ever". He pulled it off, so I guess he must have been feeling pretty accomplished. He also told us that "Chris Angel and David Blaine couldn't possibly pull this crap off". I agree.

Kira's mom donated lunch, and let me tell you how much you appreciate lunch meat when you don't ever eat lunch meat. A lot. I don't know if I could actually quantify how much in words (this seems to happen a lot, which is sort of a tough spot when you're trying to explain things in words on your blog). Anyway, after lunch, I took off by myself, and was cooking (meaning riding fast like a badass). Then my body started to hurt. I went through 3 camel baks yesterday, and still didn't feel like I was getting enough water.

When we were about 5 miles from the host (which has beds again), we (Kyle Lee and I) realized we weren't in Kansas anymore, and were somewhat lost. We asked a long-winded biker for directions, and he just confused the situation even more (and then wouldn't stop talking about things I didn't care about at the time). Finally with the help of Kyle's iPhone, we were back on the road. After a pretty frustrating ride, we made it to RIT outside of Rochester. I drank Kelsey's entire Camel Bak (holding it to my chest and squeezing it (like how I imagine you might squeeze your child after you got them back from a kidnapper, and you were so happy to see them), and then tried to go check in, at which point my body and I'm pretty sure my mind totally shut down and stopped functioning.

Because we got lost we missed the regularly scheduled check-in, which was apparently more than I could handle. When I saw that I would have to walk a 1/4 mile to check-in, and therefore get a bed and shower, I just lost my shit. It felt like I had no control over anything that was happening. Kelsey literally had to lead me upstairs to her room while I sobbed hysterically and stepped over everyone who was sitting on the floor on the way, which is essentially my whole team. I continued to sob for 3 more minutes while I laid down, thought about how badly I wanted to take off my spandex, and then was asleep still wearing said spandex.

When Kelsey and Angela came back from dinner, I was wandering around the room shoving trail mix into my mouth. Thank goodness for those two and the dinner they brought me. I am finally back in action this morning.

I'm just trying to let everyone on the trip know that it's ok to cry.