Day 1 of I Ride for Cancer 2012 Ride

Howdy! I just wanted to write a quick update to how the first day went. We did some videos and our video guy, Lee Doran, is working on all of those. We are also still trying to figure out our process with that.

The send off was just amazing. We had a LOT of people out there as well as KBTX and KAGS. I did interviews with both of them and I’m sure I just stumbled all over myself.

A lot of my Peace Lutheran friends were there. In fact, cool story. My friend Will was there to ride out with me. We’ve talked about it at church quite a bit. There was also a bike group (sorry guys, I didn’t get your group’s name except that you ride out from Pebble Creek on Saturday mornings) that I ended up riding the first 20 miles with. Since we were in a big group they let me draft off of them so it was really easy to go 20mph.

Well, Will wasn’t able to keep up at that pace and dropped back and unfortunately didn’t get to go as far as we had discussed. So later in the day as I was traveling to Coldspring, he calls his mom (who is also a member of Peace) to wish her happy birthday.

She just happened to tell him that she was in Coldspring, TX with her friend Gretchen celebrating news that Gretchen was cured of her brain tumor. Will says, Mom – that’s where Chris is going tonight!

So Jeanie (Will’s mom), gets hold of my mom and they both plan a nice dinner for us. I get to meet Gretchen and Vince and I went home with full bellies. I don’t believe in coincidences by the way. I believe that God did that to further fuel me for this ride, both physically and spiritually.

Back to the Ride

The first 40 miles were just fine. I felt good except I was still feeling the effects of having a stomach bug on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. So I just took things slow and didn’t push myself too much.

However, because of the later start at 9am and going slower, it was pushing me more and more into the heat of the day. The next 46 miles were pretty hard needless to say. Between Richards, TX and New Waverly, TX (23 mile stretch), I started feeling the effects of the heat. I probably averaged about 14 mph in that stretch which is pretty slow for me.

I took a nice break in New Waverly and replenished on fluids and felt a little better heading out. However, right outside of town I hit my first snag – a flat. I couldn’t find a puncture point however, so I decided to air up the back tire and see if it held. One mile later, it’s running flat again.

So I pulled off the side of the road and fixed it and 30 minutes later, I was back on the road. That did however put me even later into the day. I think it was 2 by then and around 94 degrees and rising and I still had at least 2 hours of riding to go!

Those last 23 miles from New Waverly to Coldspring were tough. But I kept on and made it into town at around 4:30. Sometimes I crawled at 10mph, but I persevered and made it there. Whew. Time to replenish fluids and get some food! I had burned close to 8,000 calories by my calculations!

All in all it was a great day. I am so very thankful for the awesome sendoff that my church provided and am so thankful to live in such an awesome community.

I’ll fill in on Day two tomorrow as I’m off to bed!