Blame it on the rain

I had to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday for the hill climb. Lately it seems like I suffer from "early-morning-itis," some sort of condition that prohibits me from getting out of bed before 9 a.m. I kept reminding myself that I was doing a charity race, and that being a no-show was not an option.

It ended up being just me, myself and I driving out to Grand Haven, so I was FORCED to stop at Starbucks on the way for some coffee to wake up. It started pouring right after, and continued to do so during my drive. I was kicking myself for not checking the weather. For some reason I was expecting a sunny day at the beach and it turned out to be anything but.

Waiting for the start was pretty cold. I had only brought a jersey and shorts and was completely soaked within the first five minutes.We still had a pretty good group of racers, even with the intimidating weather. It was cool to see so many people toughing it out. Climbing the hill is hard enough, even in the best of conditions.

I warmed up pretty fast once we started climbing. It's funny how relative everything becomes. Before the charity race, I kept telling myself that two hours would be so much easier then the four hours that we used to do. It didn't seem like that after the first couple of climbs though. All of a sudden I started wondering how I was going to climb the hill for two straight hours! I had to keep track of my climbs too, since I didn't have anyone there to count for me. Ok, not rocket science by any means, but not that easy either when going through oxygen deprivation.

It rained for the entire hill climb. There were times when going down the hill was harder then going up. It was really windy and the rain was pelting me so hard that I was practically blind. I had to start braking at the top of the hill too, so that I would be able to stop at the bottom. By the end of the race my brake pads were so wet that I couldn't come to a complete stop. I'm really lucky that I was able to slow down enough at the bottom of the hill to make the corner, otherwise I would have been barreling straight into traffic.

It was a relief when the announcer said that we could only do one more climb. I think it stopped raining at that point too (of course!)

I managed to hold on to the polka dot jersey for another year but I fell short on my goal of 45 climbs. I was pretty darn close with 41 though. Next year I'll be back for sure!!!

We had our own devil at the climb. Here he is trying to stab me and take my prize....