20 Mule Team

Bootsandsaddles4mel.blogspot.com - Full Story

March 1 2010

The full story (ie the ever popular "lessons learned" posts that everyone finds so entertaining) will come in a couple of days, but to satisfy everyone's curiosity, here's the basic plot of my first 100 mile completion. (Sorry – it got kind of long, so it's less basic and more....comprehensive)

Ah yes, it was a completion! Whoo hoo!

OK – as I reread this, I realize most of it sounds really negative and un-fun. Let me start off by saying that this was one of the most emotional, rewarding, taxing, painful, fulfilling event in my life. This event fulfills a long-held dream and is why I started in endurance – to ride 100 miles in 24 hours. Very few things in life are really really hard and rarely have I been challenged and pushed to the limit like I was on Saturday. As I write this, I am re-living the pain of the event, but I'm also re-living the in-describle joy of having accomplished something so….(can't think of a word that describes the feeling I have).

Typical of most newbie 100 mile riders, I took care of my horse to the detriment of myself. As a result, my horse is great and I'm here, almost 24 hours later, sitting in my chair trying to pretend I'm not STILL nauseous when focusing on anything further than about 10 feet from me, and ignoring the bloody painful scabs on the inside of my knees and calves.

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