Breakfast this morning was terrific; it was a true Southern Breakfast that featured fruit and cinnamon rolls and biscuits and sausage and an egg pie thingee. We ate with two other riders who were staying at the house; as it turns out one of the fellows is from Elmhurst (just a few miles down the road from Brandon, Mike, and me.) Chances are, we have ridden by him on the Prairie Path as each of us trained for this ride. That was fun to discover.
We hit the road shortly after breakfast and the first 30 miles or so felt good. 25 miles in, we hit mile 100, which was a selfie-worthy moment:
Everything we read said that traffic would pick up in Jackson, and it did. But we were happy to be in a good-sized city because last night we discovered a bent chain on Matt's bike and we needed to get some mechanical help. Google suggested The Bike Crossing in Ridgeland; they were 3 blocks off the Trace and were the absolute best. They took the bike straightaway, replaced the chain and made some derailleur adjustments, and had it ready to go in about 15 minutes. Matt got some much needed peace of mind and a better bike to ride, and it the price was totally fair. They are an excellent shop and we were grateful for the help.
Just outside of Jackson, you ride parallel with a giant reservoir for about 5-10 miles. It is pretty. Here's Matt looking good with his bike in front of it:
Side note: on the way down here, I cooked up a plan with Mike and Brandon (who ride bikes a lot) that we would pepper Matt (who does not) with a whole bunch of fake "bike lingo." The challenge would be that whichever of us gave the fake term, another of us would have to explain it to Matt. The plan worked beautifully yesterday; Brandon remarked on the "hors d'oeuvres" early in the ride, I lamented that we hit a pretty bad "raccoon tail," and Mike had constant complaints of "ocelots." Matt dutifully asked what each of them meant, and we had an answer each time. Today, after celebrating a "hot dog cart" that was coming up and complaining about a "mouse trap," we let Matt know that it was all made up. "All of it?" he said. Apparently we had him going. That's a testament, I suppose, to Matt's trusting nature, to our ability to make up stupid things, and to the inherent ridiculousness of bike slang.
Lunch came at Mile 45 and Matt and I (today's two all-day riders) were feeling it by then. They don't tell you this, but Southern Mississippi is really hot and humid. Temperatures ranged from 70 to 90 degrees, but the sun was a constant. It took its toll, but we were determined to make all 89, and we did. As we took turns pulling (rotations of two miles each all day), I remarked that the last 40 miles felt like it was a constant uphill ride. That is impossible, of course, but then I looked at the elevation map of the ride and holy crap the last forty miles was a constant uphill ride:
The incline was sufficiently gradual that we could maintain a decent pace - we were at just over 16 for the full 89 mile ride - but it was demoralizing to fight the whole time and never get to do the coast down the other side. (Maybe that will come tomorrow?)
When we got to the hotel, I felt totally wrecked. My feet hurt. My legs hurt. My butt hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. And most of all my back hurts. It is KILLING me. I am walking like a cowboy from an old western movie. Because I am an idiot and failed to bring along medicine, before we went to dinner tonight the Kosciusko Mississippi Wal-Mart supplied the appetizers:
Dinner was at the El Rodeo Family Mexican Restaurant, which has the dubious honor of being TripAdvisor's top pick for restaurants in the Greater Kosciusko area. Maybe anything would have been good, but we all cleaned our plates and everyone enjoyed it. We arrived during happy hour, which we good advantage of with comically-sized margaritas:
Two riding days in, we are more than 1/3 of the way there and have our longest day behind us. It has been a lot of fun, and our group of riders (which except for me is just this week getting to know one another) is about as well-matched as we could have hoped for. But struggling during the last twenty or so miles this afternoon, and then feeling each part of my body tonight, I am still trying to figure out whether a day like today was the reason for doing a ride like this or whether it proves that this was the dumbest idea that I have ever had. The next few days will hopefully make that more clear.
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