Day 13: Dayton, OH to Greensburg, IN

Distance: 100.28 mi
Elevation: 4,741 ft
Dedication: Sharon Thurston and Kerry
Ride group: Jake, Glenn, Tori, and James
Host: First Baptist Church of Greensburg

Greetings from Indiana, a whole 100 miles from where we started this morning! Our team absolutely crushed our first century today, including many first-time century riders.

We woke up at 4:30 to get a head start on the day. We were a little worried about running out of daylight and really wanted everyone to have the opportunity to finish the century, so we got out on the road as the sun was starting to rise. I dedicated the day to Sharon Thurston, a friend of my grandma’s, and Kerry.

Dedication to Sharon Thurston and a “be positive” in honor of Kerry, our team dedication today.

Today was a lot hillier than yesterday but it was mostly rolling hills and a few steeper climbs, which I much prefer to the elevation we saw in Pennsylvania. My team made pretty good time the entire day, too. We started as the second group to roll out and were consistently the first group at the water stops for most of the day.

About halfway through the day we passed into Indiana, which most of us were excited about except for Jake, an Ohio native. We didn’t pass a state sign because we were on a small backroad but took this picture to commemorate with Jake pouting in the background:

I was extremely tired today and took not one but two naps. I fell asleep at one of the water stops (which was not very long) and was OUT, and then napped again at our very long lunch stop– I’m very much looking forward to sleeping in a little tomorrow! Otherwise, I felt pretty good all day. After lunch the tiredness gave way to a little bit of hysteria and there was a lot of giggling over dumb things (“water!”). My butt is very very sore, mostly from multiple days on the bike than just today, and my knees are a little stiff, but I still had a lot of energy at the end of the day.

I did receive some sad personal news around mile 80 which upset me a lot but also motivated me to finish out the ride. My teammates were very supportive of me and that was a huge help. The one good thing about having shared connections to cancer is that people always understand what you’re going through. It’s also helpful to channel negative emotions into physical activity– I felt very strong today.

Back at the host we did a little riding around town to hit 100 miles even, ate a very satisfying dinner, and went out for ice cream! It was a beautiful night and despite the sad news I felt very happy and so, so proud of my team. It’s truly incredible to think how much we’ve grown and improved despite injuries, intense emotions, sleep deprivation, junky food, and mechanical issues– I finally joined the mechanical issue club with a crazy chain lock-up today that Glenn and Bryce were thankfully able to fix!