Taxes are still being filed. I have a stack of papers twice as heavy as today’s lunch filling my bag. The non-members need to be sorted from the members and then you need to sort out the members who didn’t pre-register. Alphabetize them… that helps. Wait, did I give a follow up call on this person? Did they finish already and it didn’t get marked? Maybe they pre-registered and never started.

I went home Saturday with a pounding headache. Instead of blaming the lack of water I drank, I blame Dan Boxer and Mark Thomas for buying me beers after the ride. How was I supposed to know that they don’t actually hydrate?

Everything ended on a sour note for me. I took a call at the last minute that made my heart sink. John Vincent got into an accident with an SUV a couple of miles from the finish. He was understandably pumped full of adrenaline and tough to talk to on the phone. A very expensive carbon recumbent took one for the team. Thankfully, he was alive and walking around. I hope he is still doing alright.

Sour notes aside, the day was a pretty amazing experience for us. I had lots of nervous energy going in to the morning and woke up a few minute before my alarm hit. Apparently Jane didn’t have the same excitement for the day because my enthusiasm didn’t encourage her to get up any quicker than usual.

I met Chris and Paul at the park in the morning about an hour and a half before the kick off. Emily was down buying some coffee from All City for the start and a local came down with a fresh pot of his own to help out. I had a mish mash of chicken scratched notes of things to go over on the pre-ride announcement and paced around a little bit trying to thank everyone that came.

Jane showed up with Chibi to help riders make sure they were relaxed. Mark was around snapping pictures. He might have told his wife that this was one of the easier rides for the year. K from Cycle Commuter introduced himself and showed off his bike for me. He rode up from Tacoma for this one. Pete showed up unexpectedly with his amazing mustache. It was nice to see so many familiar faces along with some fresh ones.

The five minute mark came up fast and I had to scramble a bit to get off the pre-ride announcements. Everyone set out… you know… relatively on time. Pat Leahy rolled in as we were breaking things down. He got stuck in some of the marathon traffic. I helped him get his bike off the roof and on to the road. I guess he forgot his ID in the car and had to come back for that too. He managed to finish the ride on time though.

John Whitenack, Matt Mikul and Vincent Muoneke took on the first control (which was very close to the start) and the Dash Point control at just past the halfway point. I appreciate their support and handling all of those hungry riders after the much tougher first half of the ride.

Chris and I drove out to the secret control at the top of Seahurst. There is an epic climb that we diabolically routed towards. There is a truck sign for the descent with 16% marked on it. That wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Mark set up shop with his camera to take pictures of people coming up it. He dubbed it the “Seahurst Wall Climb”. There are some amazing photos on the SIR flickr account. It is funny (in a sick way) to see peoples faces as they turn the corner only to realize that the climb isn’t finished yet. Sorry, everybody.

Even the fastest guys took about an hour to get to the 12 mile mark at our secret control. That should really say something about the difficulty of this ride. When Chris and I rode it fresh off of the 600K, it was pretty brutal on the legs. Most everyone seemed to be in good spirits though. Nobody punched us. We got a few middle fingers, but always followed by smiles. I think it might have been the brownies. I didn’t lace them or anything though, unless butter counts.

We had more than a few walkers up the hill but everyone seemed to come in together for the most part. There wasn’t a huge difference from the front and back this early in to the ride. Chris and I eventually packed up and drove back towards home to get some tables to set up at the finish at Loretta’s.

Loretta’s turned out to be a huge hit with everyone. The beer is solid, the burgers are just what you need post ride, and the staff is pretty friendly. They let us open up the back and everyone was able to safely park our bikes on the large patio.

The two fastest riders of the day (Ohlemeier and Ragsdale, surprise surprise) came in at an amazing 3 hours and 54 minutes. Good lord, gentlemen… maybe take a few breaks to stop and smell the flowers, eh?

The rest of the pack came in waves. Everyone seemed really happy. I kept waiting for that “Thanks a lot, jerk” comment. All I got were loads of tired looking people beaming with a sense of accomplishment. A few even said, “That was the hardest metric century I’ve ever done. Thank you.”

Volunteering is a wonderful humbling experience. It feels great to give back to a group that has given so much pain, experience and thrills to me. I wouldn’t be who I am today without the last year and a half of wonderful suffering. I will be volunteering again for a longer ride next year. Perhaps it won’t be as hard… Thank you again, everyone. It was a beautiful weekend.

Update: Check out John Whitenack’s photos from the day.

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