Days 6 & 7: Confluence, PA to Elizabeth, PA to East Liverpool, OH

Day 6

• Distance: 65.70 mi
• Elevation: 978 ft
• Dedication: Brittany
• Ride group: Glenn, Santi, Bailey, and Richa
• Host: Round Hill Presbyterian Church

Day 6 was a bit of a struggle for me so I decided to wait to blog so it wasn’t an overly negative post… and then Day 7 ended up being an even bigger mess! But both days ended with everyone safe at great hosts, so in the end neither day was really that bad.

Yesterday we departed Confluence and took a nice flat, slightly downhill gravel path almost all the way to Elizabeth. I dedicated my day to Brittany, a young woman who was a member of the host church and passed from cancer a few months ago. It was a chilly morning and the trail was shaded most of the day so it was nice in terms of weather. The morning was really beautiful– we decided to “megagroup”, or ride with multiple ride groups together since we were on a trail away from cars, and we connected a few speakers to have some fun music to keep the energy up. Unfortunately we later had some breakdowns in terms of group communication and team riding etiquette which really overwhelmed me. We had a half-baked plan to go slightly off route and see Fallingwater, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, but I ended up turning back with about half the group that wanted to go because the road was so steep and heavily trafficked with no shoulder. I think the stress and intensity of 4K just finally caught up to me and made me begin to doubt my abilities as a ride director. I came very close to racking for the day because I was so overwhelmed but a few of my new friends were really kind and comforted me through the day.

Being on the trail meant the ride was otherwise uneventful. We did have a rest stop along a river where I went down to try to skip rocks with Shelby but mostly looked for some sea glass and other beach finds. We got into the host relatively early and got showered and fed, and then Jordan, one of my best friends from college who is currently at Pitt pharmacy school, picked me up for a quick girls’ night! We just hung out at her apartment for a few hours but I had a great time, it was exactly what I needed after such a long and exhausting day. When I got back to the host I had a quick debrief with Jake and felt a lot better about the day– it’s hard to step away from things on 4K but it definitely does help clear to my head.

Day 7

• Team distance: 68.81 mi
• Team elevation: 2,290 ft
• Dedication: my team
• Van group: Maggie and Bailey <3
• Host: Randy at Ram Fitness, who took us all in at the last minute when our original host fell through!

Today was my first day on van duty! It was also our final day in Pennsylvania, which I cannot say I was upset about. Two of my teammates, Chase and Jake, are from Ohio and were so excited that they led our team chant and replaced half the words with “Ohio!”.

We were also stressed by needing to get Bailey’s knee checked out at an urgent care and our pilot run of a team laundry day. Maggie and I volunteered to take everyone’s clothes to a laundromat and wash them, which ultimately worked out pretty well and should work well in the future, too, but was not the most efficient task with everything else we had to do. We also had a slight miscommunication about where the team was getting lunch, so we got some Olive Garden donated but didn’t think we needed to bring it to the team… only to get a call from Glenn in the water van asking where lunch was. After getting our (slightly damp) laundry, we worked on securing dinner since at that point we didn’t even have a host for the night, so we were certain we wouldn’t be given dinner. As we were eating we found out that Glenn (who also did 4K in 2016 and is a pro at all of the logistical aspects) had called a gym in Lisbon, OH, about using their showers and the owner offered his entire facility for us to sleep at, too! So we notified the team and headed out to Ram Fitness.

On the way, the host van gals had a lot of chaotic, deluded moments that are still making me laugh as I write this. We were just so tired and spent from the day that everything– getting plastic fireman hats, trying to go through a drive-thru ATM, even just trying to speak normally– was hysterical. I was so glad that I was with Bailey and Maggie today, I honestly couldn’t imagine getting through everything that was thrown at us with anyone else. Nothing like a slightly traumatic day to strengthen some friendships!

When we were about five minutes from the gym the driver in front of us stopped at an intersection, got out of his truck, and started to approach us– I panicked for a second, but it was Randy, our host! I guess not many 15-passenger vans with bikes pass through Lisbon. Randy has been unbelievably generous to us. We came back with a ton of food from Firehouse Subs for dinner (huge thanks to William Frye at his team at North Fayette), Nothing Bundt Cakes for dessert, and Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast tomorrow, and Randy also bought seven pizzas!

After getting unpacked at the gym and laying the damp laundry out in the sun, Maggie and I headed back out to shuttle the riders to the new host location. We didn’t want them to add another 10 miles to an already long day, and they also ran into some road closures. Along the way we stopped at the World’s Largest Teapot in West Virginia, which was honestly smaller than I expected but still cute. We had a beautiful evening ride back to Ram Fitness on some very bumpy backroads with the team, belting “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as we briefly passed through West Virginia. Back at the gym, we enjoyed our assortment of food out in the parking lot so we wouldn’t spill food on the turf floor of the gym.

Feeling very thankful for my team this evening and eternally grateful to the people who have fed and lodged us this past week. It’s hard to believe we’ve only been doing this for a week! Here’s to nine more :)

Until tomorrow,

Lauren