Old war wound

It seems like I can go around 80-85 miles before the right knee starts acting up. Luckily, I guess, I rarely ride that far. Back in 2005, a mere month before the start of my rookie racing career, I hyper extended my right knee in spinning class. Every now and then it flares up. That happened again with 20 miles left to go at the Mum Festival century.

Sis, Angie and I started in the fog and cold and Angie had a flat about 2.5 miles in. Not a good thing to start with on an overall bad day for her. Speed wasn't a factor as I was out for mileage so we just rode at whatever pace would suit us. At the 60 mile cut off, I was happy to see them follow me on the 100 route. Unfortunately, I didn't know that neither Angie or Sis had spent much time on the bike recently until we were deep into the ride. I felt really bad for pushing them to do the hundred with me. We got to Kaiser Lake and went DOWNHILL to the food stop. They changed the route to go down and not UP the hill. Crap. Anyway, there was one more cut off at 75 miles for the century riders to go and right before that Angie was cramping bad. I decided to take the extra loop and let them ride back. Well, that was a dickhead move on my part, but I paid for that karma about 3 mile later when I blew my knee out. I limped the rest of the way back to the parking lot with a mileage of 98.40. No way was I going to ride circles around the lot just to get 100. Packed up and went home.

Note to the organizers, and how many times does this need to be said? Please put the painted TURN markers farther from the damn intersections!!!!! Some were actually IN the intersection. On a good note, there was plenty of good food at the Kaiser Lake rest stop, but nearly NONE at the first rest stop. By nearly none, I mean "very few cookies" because the 30 milers ate them before I got there. Harumph.