Athens to Atlanta....now with complete story

Member

Warmer than supposed to bem rain early but stopped intime for the race

Est finish time of 7 hours even. several new friends and hooked up with several old freinds, did basic first aid on two DC skaters from my former team.

detailed version tomorrow

teehee

i beat Thruster teehee

PRESIDENT

Member

Warmer than supposed to bem rain early but stopped intime for the race

Est finish time of 7 hours even. several new friends and hooked up with several old freinds, did basic first aid on two DC skaters from my former team.

6:59:51 87 miles
Overall 75 out of 169
age/gender 17 out of 26
avg pace 12.43 mph

So it's early Sunday morning, and i mean early morning, try 2:30 and i jolt up from a dream thinking i missed the bus.

so I’m up and wired already. plus for this race i am normally wired as it is.
so shower, brew some coffee, and a light breakfast. get all my pre-mixed and frozen fluid bottles packed and labeled and decide what goes to which of the 6 checkpoints. pack up the back pack and leave the house skating the 2 miles to the bus pick up site.
I get the bus and i see one other person on it at first. but not the guy that was supposed to be there to accept cash payments from those that did not reserve a bus seat earlier, do the list check off and give directions to the bus driver.

so the locals ask me what we should do?

well let's see. i don't care about the cash honestly, hmmm i never even saw a reservation list, and i have about 8 people now from my club that can tell the bus driver directions. screw it we leave on time!
so about 10 minutes into the bus ride the guy calls back on one of the cell phones that have ringing him. he overslept and he's driving Truck #1 and he needs to be at the start. so we co-ordinate a meeting place and get him. Crisis over.... whew.... all the sudden.......#$@%@#$ i left my helmet back on the wall by the bus pick up. Formulate plan on how to acquire a helmet.....what’s that on the windshield....RAIN

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Time check. 5:58 all this and still not even 6 o'clock

The bus arrives in Athens, I procure a helmet from one of my club skaters that is driving Truck #2 ( sounds less important than truck #1 huh? Well…. WRONG! I make the requisite potty stop, come out of bathrooms and building to look for Miss Steph, she picked up my registration packet for me. I find her, she even brought food from the breakfast buffet for me. So I go inside the building, the rain has stopped but I wanted light. Start to pin my numbers on and apparently the local crew had gotten a hold of my numbers and started writing references to my hash name all over. teehee

love the little touches. Get back outside the dawn is starting, excitement is in the air hugs, kisses and well wishes all around. This is a family…all on wheels or supporting the wheeled wonders.

And………….they’re off. Fist decline 200 yards out and BOOM, there’s a butt on the ground already. <sheesh> the combination of light rain and the oils off the roads make a hazardous combination. BOOM BOOM, two more down, YIKES. First right hand turn another one down, I’m forced to jump the curb and onto a brick sidewal to cut the turn. More descents and a few more falls. First five minutes and I’m losing count of the bodies on the ground. We get to the left hand turn that takes us out of the Athens and the first little climb. An appetizer of what’s to come. Pace lines are forming and people are sizing each other up now. Another we roll down this neighborhood sreet and a car coming up. The audible warning shouted out as the driver freezes in place. Where are the cops? Oh it turn out the lead pack missed the left turn out of the town and they have the cops. We all pass the car and then here the lead pack motor cycle escort behind us “SPEED PACK BACK” we move right and admire the form, the speed and look of grit as they chase what should be the Chase 1 pack.

A wee bit further and the second decent descent, more folks down, my pace line consists of 18-20 people and I just saw three go down one at a time. The gear tells me that they are in the same category as I am. In cycling terms I’d rank me a CAT3 this year CAT 2 before the kidney stones, the “wipe outs” so far have been Cat 5 folks. I decide it’s time to “separate the wheat from the chaff” and take another decent skater with me. We catch a chase group of two and settle in for the long day….WRONG another, “SPEED PACK” comes by and we all hopped in with them. It’s nice skating with these ultra fast guys and keeping pace for the moment. I kept with them for 10 minutes when I could tell I would bonk out if I stayed there.

Out alone for the moment and picking up and dropping off folks. I get this little 94-pound 29y/o female skater from Seattle. We talk a bit and I found out this was her virgin year for Athens to Atlanta (a2a) I give her some advice stay comfortable this year learn the course and don’t let anyone dictate her pace or cadence. The two of stayed together for about 5 miles, a few skater caught us and we caught a few skaters, we now have a new pace line with a cadence I don’t like so I bowed out wished her luck. We’d meet again several times over the course of the day it turns out.

I came across two of my skaters, Marc and Lisa. Both of these skaters have done the Bike Ride Across Georgia with me but in different years. They were well ahead of me and gotten dropped off the back of a pace line that Thruster stayed in I tired to hang low with them but Marc would not switch lead and he would not stay with me when I took over the lead. I had to regretfully leave them behind me…I learned later that Marc DNF’d an hour later and what goffy stride do I see on the horizon…..yup you guessed it Thruster. I recognize that goofball anywhere. I catch him 5-8 minutes later and yell out to him, calling him Farmboy and Junior, two names he’s used to now from me (and other club members too now teehee

I try to get thim to tuck in and he tells me about leading a pace line too long and how they basically chewed him up and spit him out when they no longer had a use for him. I tried to taunt him into sticking with me with the closing words, “but the old man is going to beat you” and gave an evil laugh. And took off. He finished an hour after me looking really rough. Poor kid.

This year I went low tech, you know jrjo style nothing fancy because I did not want to push hard this year. Nothing but my wristwatch on and I never even set the timer on it. Due to this I was quite often not sure how many miles into the course I really was. All the sudden I see signs for the Activity center in Dacula which means I’m almost to the 38 mile finish, where I have ended my racing in previous years. I look at the watch and see I might make a decent time there. So I kick up a notch crank up the MP3 which happens to be hitting one of my POWER SONGS, oh yeah Twisted Evil

I decide I want to blow thru this like a NASCAR driver with no need to stop. And I did, time was 2:40 there, not bad about 25 minutes slower than when I train for that distance in mind.

A bit further on there is a merger of the 52 miler coming into the course, good fresh meat and not so lonely a trek. I see a group of DC skaters from my previous team and I catch up to them, we talk, we skate, we catch up, we skate. One of the girls who was aquatinted with was nervous on downhills so she was getting dropped. Turns out she can rock up-hills though so her pace and my present pace were a good match. We skated for 35 miles I’d say together, and we were having a blast talking stories about mutual DC buddies and past and present stories and gossip. Hell we even missed a minor turn but was only a block of course. We caught up to two DC skater that had surged forward from our previous line. One not looking good. Drinking nothing but Gatorade I decided he was probably dehydrated, gave him my water bottle as well as a some buffered electrolyte mix to settle his stomach. They were only a couple of miles from the next check point and I told him to pull out there and drink some water, ice down and see if he needs to end his day before a serious condition develops. Maureen (DC SKATER) and I pull into Check Point 5 and there is an old girlfriend who happens to be supporting the DC crew. She asks me how are my EMT skills and if I can look at another skater. A young lady I don’t know apparently clipped wheels and landed hard on her shoulder. Range of motion good, nothing seemed broken however it hurts just hanging there, so taker her race pins off, roll her arm up in her shirt, and pin the roll into place and instant sling. Rest, Ice and motrin baby, get it checked thoug if it continues to hurt more than 48 hours.

Now we are in the last 16 miles of the course, these are my waters and Maureen can tell I wanna let lose, my pulse is only 132 and I’ve been skating since 7:30 it’s about 1:00 now, I have plenty to give still. She, a DC skater hit the road, I’m a minute behind while setting up the sling. I catch and Maureen give me the “go on, I’ll be fine” I do quick calculations and decide I might, might, if I work hard still make it under 7 hours. There si one more check point at which I’ll have to stp since I have supplies there but I there, out and gone, I have 40 minutes in which to skate 10 miles. But this is now where I have an advantage, I know each and every crack, crevice and manhole cover now. I know where construction is, I know traffic patterns and I have police stopping traffic. I settle in and start to pick off skaters, a few cyclist are on the course one lady clocks me at 25MPH for a while she’s on the bike. she turns off but I’m still motivated, frequent clock checks tell me it’s going to be close to make it under 7 hours.
I get into major vehicle traffic now and hop sidewalks, jump curbs and everything I can to keep pace. Finally hitting a clearing I “throw the hammer down, I see a solo skater up and a pair in front of him in the distance. My competitive nature now in full swing I settle into high gear and blow by, I give audible warnings for the cops long before I get there so then can clear me a path. I round the last corner, treacherous, due to the fact that there is sand, construction and pot holes all here. I look up and seethe pair going down hill, we are a mile from the end and I have no intention of letting to Out of towners take beat me like this in front of my folks. I gather more speed and blow by them before they can react. Right had turn that at this speed I have to take at such a lean I’m on one foot sprint up this small climb and look over my shoulder and nothing…..no sign of the pair. Twisted Evil

I crest the hill and start a long descent into the park. Gathering as much speed as possible I still have about ½ mile to finish and we finish uphill. As I round the last turn I can see the clock 6:59:42, 20 yards left and push all I can…….6:59:51. I did it!!!under 7 still.

The Pinball

87 miles

amazing.

glad you beat your goal time too, great job hyper.

PRESIDENT

Downhill, rain, skates, 87 miles!!??

NFW!!!

Great job Hype! Way to meet that goal too. thumbs up

Grunt

Animal!

Member

I love your descriptive tale! I have no clue about skating so it was very neat to read.

Great job!

Member

That really is incredible, great time! Great report!

Member

That's a long way to go on skates Shocked

Congratulations!

Member

Well...

I did three things wrong:

1. I ate too little in the morning.

2. I pulled out of my comfortable pace line for a faster one.

3. I tried to catch up to a pace line.

If it weren't for these three things it would've been a lot closer Chuck. But I'll let you gloat for now because like my 2nd US10K, my 2nd a2a I'll beat you.

I finished like a champion though sprinting like a mofo, it took all that I had but I did it.

-Junior

Member

Athens to Atlanta....now with complete story

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