I did it!

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt

There have been very few times in my life where I felt more like the man in the arena. If any of you looked at the weather between Saint Augustine and Daytona this past weekend, you know it was ugly. There was a monster wind out of the northeast (but more east than northeast...thank God for small favors) and sheets of rain. There was an option to ride 100 miles the first day, and I took it (hence the century patch). About two minutes after that decisive fork in the road, the bottom fell out of the sky. I couldn't have been more drenched, but I finished it. Sunday, I took the normal route home. There wasn't a 100 mile option on Sunday, and that's a good thing, or I may have stupidly tried it again. Sunday, the wind picked up even more, but the rain died a bit. I hit some, but nothing coming down in sheets like Saturday. The last leg of the ride went from the small town of Hastings into Saint Augustine...and it's all heading northeast...right into the wind. I was seeing speeds of anywhere from 9 to 15 miles an hour...and not getting passed by many other riders. It was brutal.

I started the odometer before leaving Saturday morning and when I finished Sunday afternoon, it read 181.67 miles. Today, I'm just sore. The wife looked at me last night and asked, "All that training and you're still sore?" Well yeah. All that training helped me finish the ride. It didn't stop it from hurting. If I knew what the two days were going to be like, and how I'd feel when it was done, I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. It truly is one of the most rewarding weekends I have ever spent, on a whole lot of levels. Again, thank all of you that were part of it with me.