'08 Space Race

Another week flys by and here we are at the Space Race. I'm still feeling under the weather but managed a couple of short rides during the week but, just the same, I stick with the metric century so not to tear myself up. Colin and I drove down to LaMarque where we met up with Raf' and Irene. We just had to mess with Raf'. He didn't know we were there yet so when he went to the latrine Colin grabbed just one of his shoes and hid it in the truck. Boy, poor Raf' was at wits end telling us how he was certain that he had put both of his shoes in the truck when he left home. Even the guys in the vehicles around us were laughing. We gave him his shoe and he had a few choice words for us.

It was a beautiful, sunny day with a breeze out of the Southeast. I was enjoying being with friends and watching all of the other riders. It's hard to get excited about a ride that covers the roads that you ride on a regular basis but it was a good feeling knowing what roads you could cut back on if you needed to shorten up the ride.

We rode out at 18mph and managed it all day taking turns pulling when heading into the wind. At the 60-100 split Raf' took off for the full century and we picked up Brian, who is a former Marine. I felt good right up to the last 10 miles then I don't know what happened. My back was really hurting bad and the pain was radiating down my quads. I was also getting really bad shooting pains and cramps in my hamstrings. At one point I fell off the back and tooled along at 11mph. I felt bad when Colin came back to pull me up while Brian and Irene waited for me around the corner. I started feeling a little better and we upped it right back to 18. I held on 'til the last 3 miles when 12 to 14 was all I could manage.

After a couple of micky d's hamburgers, a pie, 2 bags of cookies and a coke at the finish we loaded up and headed for home anticipating our next ride. There are only a couple of pics until Raf' sends me the ones he took.


by TXPeddler