4k For Cancer Blog : Day 6 - 342 Miles To Date

So I honestly tried to blog last night but the internet cut off as soon as I finished typing. Yesterday was actually awesome. We went into the Lynchburg ride with the idea that it was going to be very hard, as people have said in the past. The wake up call was set to be at 5am and we all woke up and did everything according to plan, packed the vans, ate breakfast, and did our dedication circle all by 6:30am. Everyone was on the road by 7am and ready to go. Yesterday I rode in honor of my dad's friend Ray Boone who passed away Tuesday of pancreatic cancer. Keeping that in the back of my mind always helps get me through the tough parts of the ride. We rode for a while and nothing was too terrible, mostly just rolling hills. The ride was said to be 75 miles of 4,000ft elevation gain, which seems like not that much if it's spread out, but we just weren't sure where the hills were going to be. We just cruised through the first 50, where lunch was going to be. Smoothie King donated smoothies and whole foods donated a ton of bananas, so it was nice to get away from bagels and pasta for a little while. We rerouted the course a little bit and it ended up being 82 miles, but as we continued we never encountered any hills that weren't ride-able. The morale was getting higher throughout all the teams and everyone was very excited as we got within 15 miles of the host. We just continued trucking along and looked at all the amazing views. I can definitely feel myself getting stronger and better at climbing hills which is really awesome, and I've noticed my teammates make improvements as well. It's just really great having a lot of people to motivate and inspire you and everyone has been getting along really well. We arrived to the host and were offered an amazing meal and showers, which is always nice. The next morning was a little more mixed emotions for me. I was definitely pretty tired, and it was my first time riding two days in a row (as I drove the van one day and we had a service day in between the other rides.) The first twenty miles went by pretty slow and I just felt completely drained, I just continued to push and get to the next water stops. When I was getting even more tired I just kept remembering why I was riding. My hands were aching, my legs were tired, and I was just exhausted overall, but there are thousands of people fighting cancer right now and keeping that in the back of my mind really helped get me through. We are out here fighting for them and no matter what we have to keep pedaling even if every day isn't a good day. Once we got to lunch, I had a good amount of food and water and started to feel more energized. Our group got excited for only about 23 miles left of the ride and started to push it and I was feeling great. My favorite part of today was getting off of 460 and riding on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was beautiful and had so many fun downhills! Even though there were some reroutes along the last stretch, we just kept pushing on and eventually arrived in Salem, Va at Living Water Church. The hosts are amazing and we had a great outdoor dinner, not to mention we received our first mail drop. Today started out a little rough, especially being on busy roads for some of the time, but overall I would say it went pretty well. I believe we only have three more nights in Virginia, then it's on to the next state! (and hopefully out of the Appalachians soon.) I think one of the cooler things I've seen thus far are all of the trains and train tracks in every area. Thank you so much to my parents and Terri Sullivan for the wonderful gifts at the first mail drop, it was definitely exciting and I appreciate it! Next stop, Blacksburg!!!