Feel the Burn

This morning was the super-long ride. My coaches, while all wonderful, sometimes don't get on the same page. As a result, I had emails stating that the ride was 25, 40, 50, 51, and 54 miles. So it was kind of a fun surprise for all of us to find out the real distance (27 miles out and 27 miles back, and whenever you got tired, a nice man in an SUV would scrape you up off the road and take you to your car).

The 27 out was actually fun. It was really cool and sunny, and flat-ish for the first 20 miles. The last seven miles were all hills, which very nearly killed me. We stopped and took a little break, then headed back. I made it ten more miles, for a 37 mile total. I'm pretty psyched.

OK, now for the fun stuff. The title of this post doesn't refer to the difficulty of the ride. It refers to the fact that I am baked. Well-done. Crispy. Every inch of my body that wasn't covered in clothing is bright red and hurts like hell. This is one of my very worst sunburns ever, of all time, and most of my summers ages 12-16 were focused on giving myself hellish sunburns. So this is a doozy.

The REALLY fun part of it, though, it what is NOT sunburned. I look like I'm wearing a white trisuit, socks, sunglasses and gloves. It is ridiculous. If there was a way to post non-porno pics to share with all of you, I would.

The other excitement of the day is that somewhere along the 54 mile route, my friend L's car keys vanished. Poof. Gone. And her apartment keys, wallet, tax return, and other personal documents and items were locked inside her car.

FUN FACT: Did you know that cars are ranked 1 through 3 based on how hard the locks are to pop? L's car is a 3 - the hardest one. The AAA guys, according to the locksmith that eventually made it out there, were all fighting over who had to respond to her call, because they knew it would suck. And it did. It took him a solid 45 minutes to get the door open, then his tools were all jammed in the door and he had to disasemble the door to get it out. Bad. Slow. Hot. More sunburn.

I'm happy to say that I am now home, showered, slathered in Aloe Vera and watching The Next Food Network Star. That's about all I have to say about that. It's been a looooooooooooooong day.