Day 2: Sykesville, MD to Shippensburg, PA

• Distance: 67.65 mi
• Elevation: 4,344 ft
• Dedication: My great-grandma, Mary Ellen Rodine
• Ride group: Eli, Jack, and Katy
• Host: Memorial Lutheran Church

Greetings from Pennsylvania! Today we crossed the state border and this all started to feel a little more real.

I slept pretty terribly last night (we have a few snorers in our group and I struggled to drown them out) and we were woken up at 5:30 AM. We designate someone as the “rooster” to wake everyone up and we pretty much unanimously agreed that it should be Casey, our most energetic teammate, who delivered with “Good Morning” by Kanye West and some cheerful pep talks. I suspect he’ll be doing a lot of roostering this summer!

It took us a while to get on the road but once we got off the main road out of Sykesville it was a beautiful ride. My teammate Mike was in the water van today and he has done 4K before, which meant that all of our water stops were well-coordinated and the directions chalked on the road were super clear. There were a lot of rolling hills, pastures, and streams. It reminded me a lot of Kentucky! We also caught our first glimpse of the mountains… scary…

My riding group was hauling for the first part of the day, but we reached the hilliest part of the ride after a very long rest stop at Gettysburg College. We had an awesome lunch courtesy of a huge grocery store haul from our host van drivers. I took a little bit of a nap there which was nice, but when we got going again I felt pretty terrible– just in time for the hardest part of the day!

We had some crazy climbs that ended up being too much for me with all the lactic acid that had built up in my legs. I had to walk a good bit of them but had a nice break with my ride group at the campground at the top of the climb. The manager was kind enough to bring us cold water, and my teammate Katy and I had the time of our lives on their swing set. When we all got to the host I found out that every single rider summited that climb– plenty of walking, sweat, and frustration to go around, but no one had to rack!

The one good part about brutal climbs: we had an AMAZING descent on the other side! It can sometimes be scary to go really fast downhill on unfamiliar roads, but this road wasn’t too windy and was wide open.

My group rolled in with another and we were the first ones to arrive at the host. The rest of our teammates rolled into our amazing host spot at the Memorial Lutheran Church in Shippensburg over the next few hours. The shower situation was a little rough because we were running late and had to be driven to Shippensburg University, but the riders who got in later were able to shower at a Planet Fitness. We had an incredible dinner and I spent the rest of the evening working on assigning chores and van duty for the next few weeks with Jake, one of my co-directors. Director duties have been a little tricky to figure out but we have gotten so much positive input from our teammates and alumni, which is much appreciated.

Tomorrow we have a pretty daunting day– 60 miles, 8,000 feet of elevation, and lots of steep climbs. Hoping to sleep well tonight to rest up!

Until then,

Lauren