MS-150 Day One

I had participated in the MS-150 three times before, in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Each time I was a part of the Anheuser-Busch team. In 2009 I decided not to participate because I wasn't sure that I would still be working for AB in September. In fact I didn't get laid off until October.

Some other people at Asynchrony were planning on doing the MS-150 this year so I decided to do it as well. There was not an official team or anything.

Helen picked me up from work on the Friday before and she dropped me off at the campsite in Columbia. She then drove on to Kansas City to take the kids to the Renaissance Fair. It almost dark as I was putting up my tent. Fortunately some people offered help in putting it up so it was not too difficult. It's a pretty easy tent to set up but you do need someone to hold up the middle while putting the poles in.

My plan was to ride the 100 mile route each day. I woke up early on Saturday morning and ate breakfast. I started the ride at 7:24. I decided that I would try to ride fast at first and see how things went. Since I was only riding 100 miles, I figure that even if I burnt out from going too fast, I could just rest a while and continue.

I was flying along early in the ride. I rode with some fast people, chatted a while and was doing great. I didn't even stop until 35 miles in. I made my second stop at 55 miles. At this point it was starting to get hot. After this the route turned back towards the south and the wind that had been helping me all morning was now a headwind.

The next 15 miles were probably the hardest part of the ride. I was by myself for most of this section. It seemed like all of the other people on the 100 mile route were either ahead of me of behind me. I stopped at the next rest are at 70 miles and had a nice long rest in the shade. I was drinking a lot of water and trying to eat enough to keep my body going. You could tell it was hot: there were lines for water but no lines for the porta-potties. It reportedly got up the 96° on Saturday.

I decided to stop at the two remaining rest stops at 80 and 90 miles. At this point the 100 miles route had joined back with the 75 mile route so there were more riders. This made me feel better. At each stop I drank a lot of water and refilled my bottles. That ice water tasted so good.

During the last 10 miles I saw a lot of riders waiting on the side of the road. I don't know if they were resting, had mechanical problems, or were waiting to be picked up. There were SAG vehicles patrolling the route so I knew that they would be taken care of.

Near the finish there was a photographer. At an earlier photo station I think I was behind another rider so I wanted to be by myself here. I sprinted for a bit to get some separation. I guess someone behind me took this as a challenge and started to sprint for the finish. I decided that I had to respond so I stood on the pedals and started hammering. I managed to cross the finish about half a bike length in front of him. We were both doing over 30 mph at the time. I finished at 2:47.

After the ride I knew I still needed to rehydrate. I kept eating and snacking until dinner. I made sure that I ate a lot of dinner and had full water bottles to take back to the tent. I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night hungry and thirsty.

Before going to sleep I put the rain fly on the tent. There were supposed to be thunderstorms moving into the area.