I did it y’all! 930.6 miles and 57,368 feet of climbing in 9 days! I was so happy when I finished I had a little cry.
Today I did a rebel route called the snake. It was actually fun and has a little bit of everything, flat desert, rolling hills through Titan’s Grove, hilly and reverse hilly KOM and the volcano. Everything hurt when I got on the bike but knowing it was the last day made a huge difference. I didn’t have to worry about saving anything for tomorrow so I blasted through it with all I had left.
Thanks for all the ride ons and encouraging messages! @adm0629 messaged me and asked if I could smell the barn. I told her I could and that it smelled soooo good! I got cheers from Kiersten. And @meganherzog did her workout with me on discord and then came back at the very end to cheer me the final couple miles. And @Coach_Theia checked in on discord while she was out and then hopped on zwift and cheered me on until the end.
And thank you all for the messages and encouragement throughout. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows these last nine days and your support helped get me through it all!
Breakfast today was sourdough pancakes. Ride snacks were a mix of sweet potato and baked oatmeal. I did not have a big mid-ride snack. I was all business today and didn’t have to worry about tomorrow. My recovery meal was an enormous burrito that did not last long at all I can tell you that!
The music that spun up today was so good it was hard to choose a theme song, but I have to go with “Unstoppable” by Sia. It came up when I had only 3 miles left. I put my head down and dug in, and gasped out the lyrics. It was marvelous.
Finished! My avatar remained cool as a cucumber, darn her!
@Stefanie was so fun for me, to see you do this. Looked forward to your reports everyday. Thanks for sharing with us. I echo everything everyone has said above. Such a fantastic accomplishment. Enjoy the down time. Bravo!
Thank you, thank you all so very much! You are all amazing and inspiring people and I could not have done half as well without all your support and encouragement. It was a team effort and what a great team you are!
It was so strange getting up this morning and not getting on the bike. My brain is relieved and my body is confused. I suspect as the day progresses, the fatigue will begin to make itself known.
In the middle of all the craziness last week, @Coach_Theia, when checking in with me, reminded me to be grateful to my body for allowing me to do this. I was, and I am, lucky and grateful. I’m pretty sure that I will never again let negative body thoughts get in the way of loving every square inch, because holy cow, I asked a lot! How can I ever again pick at myself and say there is too much of that or not enough of this, that I’m short or fat or don’t look like fill in the blank when the body I do have accomplished what it did? What a colossal betrayal to look in the mirror and say what I see in it isn’t good enough!
I don’t know why it took riding a trainer 930 miles in 9 days to figure it out. Well I do, actually. We women are constantly bombarded with “not good enough” messages and it’s one thing to know intellectually that it is not true but something else entirely to actually believe it. And here I am at 52 finally, finally believing it. And I believe it for all of you too. You all regularly ask your bodies to do hard and amazing things, and they do. Celebrate it! Be grateful! Believe that the body you have is good enough and beautiful. Because it is.
I also wanted to chime in that you really started to ramp up specific training in only the last two months? Even more astounding that your body responded to every challenge leading up to your mission and carried you through the days of your event - a testament of your powerful strength and high level of fitness, at your base level. Your feat is simply amazing but your body is capable of such incredible-ness, if asked.
-Angie
I might need to lock @Stefanie’s TrainingPeaks account for that to happen
I echo everyone’s comments, including yours, Stefanie, and absolutely love your reflection about gratitude. It’s been an honor coaching you through this challenge, so thank you for the opportunity!!
Yep @adm0629, just began ramping up the training two months prior. All those Saturdays of doing a workout and then going for another two hours afterwards paid off
Ha, who needs TrainingPeaks to ride a bike? Aw, and thank you @Coach_Theia
I have not forgotten about recipes @Marmen21! I think all or most of them are online somewhere so I will collect the links together soon
You have earned a bunch of Gail days for sure!!! 
Aw, and thank you 
And when lockdown is over will you be renting out your chef?