Monday, June 9, 2008

The Invisible Hill - Clinton, IL (Day 15)

My dad gave me one 'joking' piece of advice when I left Baltimore two weeks ago, “Watch out for the invisible hills.” I remember smiling and thinking, “Okay, Dad. I'll be sure to look out for those invisible hills.” Well today, I came face to face with an invisible hill and it was quite the experience.

Our day started out like any other. We work up around 5:40 and got ready to bike. We were warned that we would have to bike 110 miles in windy conditions, but the warning did not prepare us for what lay ahead. I had the pleasure of biking with Clare, Sarah, Alison, and Amy. The five of us quickly decided to name our team Spice Girls and each of us received a nickname of one of the five members of the band. We spent the first five to ten miles singing songs and quizzing each other on different trivia facts. The time flew by and before we knew it we were at our first water stop. We relaxed, hydrated, and then returned to the road.

The winds had picked up significantly and we soon found ourselves biking against 30 to 35 mile per hour winds. Four of us are inexperienced riders and quickly were forced to learn how to pace line or face the consequence of being pushed backwards by the winds. About five miles after the water stop, I found myself out of breath and tired! My muscles ached and I was covered in a thin layer of dirt. I didn't understand why I was so tired! The road was perfectly flat- there was not one degree of elevation change. Despite the flat lands, I could not go faster than 8 miles per hour. Just as I was about to give up, I thought about my dad's words of advice “watch out for the invisible hills.” It was now that I realized what he meant. It is when the head-winds can be so strong that you feel like you are forever biking uphill!

We quickly discovered that we would be unable to bike the whole 110 miles in 30 miles per hour winds. Our leaders devised a plan in which each group would be shuttled 30 miles of the route. My group was the second group to be shuttled. After being driven, we were about 25 miles outside of Clinton (our destination for the evening). Each member of my group looked at each other as we stepped out of the van. None of us wanted to continue. We were tired. We were in pain. Yet our drive to finish was greater than our aching muscles and droopy eyes. And so we climbed back on to our bikes and increased our pace. To keep each other motivated we debated whether biking is good because you have to think or whether biking is bad because you have time to think. We came to a 2-2 split decision with Alison abstaining from our vote.

Before we knew it we past a road sign “18 miles till Clinton.” It was then that our true motivation set in. Together we pushed through those 18 miles and entered the town of Clinton. We joked that seeing the sign for Clinton was as significant as entering a new state- we were that happy. We pulled over into the first gas station to refill our water bottles. Just as we stopped, Clare received a call saying that the team would be shuttled to the school. We decided that we would finish the trip- on our bikes- making us the only the team to bike to the high school.

The last few miles to the school may have been the easiest all day...Physically the biking wasn't easy. The winds were still extremely strong and the temperature was still just over 100 degrees. And yet, I found biking enjoyable. Through the wind and sun we had done something incredible: together, as a team, we laughed, we talked, and we motivated our way to the end...as a team!

-Meg Hindle

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