Day 6: Ardmore to OKC, OK

Today I dedicated my ride to Bonnie Freeman, a friend of my family's who is now a breast cancer survivor. Each day we dedicate our ride to someone and when we get tired, sore, etc, we think of that person and what they had to endure. Today was one of those days when most people were thinking hard about their ride dedicatee. We thought the route would be ~100 miles, but that turned out to be a minimum of 110 miles and up to 130 miles. I happened to be in the group that ended up doing 130 miles, and I can assure you that we did not make our day that long on purpose. Myself and three others took a wrong turn at a key intersection on route 77 and ended up on route 7 heading east. I didn't realize this at first because I was too busy chatting with one of my teammates. By the time we realized we were off course, we were 5 or 10 miles from where we needed to be. One of the guys I was with had an iPhone, so we used the maps in it to locate where we were and find the most efficient route for where we needed to be. The "efficient" route turned out to be a bit longer than expected and by the time we arrived at the 40 mile team rest stop, our computers indicated that we had already ridden 59 miles. Oops. Although the four of us were behind, we eventually caught up to about 4 more riders about 100 miles into our ride. That small victory definitely took some of the fatigue out of one's legs. We had a lot of critter spottings today. Our two van drivers captured a couple of tarantulas (and let them go) for our first rest stop and while we were "lost" this morning, we had a herd of cattle run along next to us. I also saw a few Longhorns and several turtles! The amount of roadkill has still not ceased to amaze me either.

Tonight and tomorrow (our first rest day!) we'll be staying at Oklahoma Christian University. The folks here have been awesome and we're so grateful for all their help and letting us stay...and the accomodations are awesome. They're putting us up in the university's apartments, which are basically brand new, with a full kitchen and washer/dryer for every 3-4 people. That is a nice ratio, if I do say so myself. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, though I don't know how long I'll actually be able to do that given that I've gotten (sort of) into the routine of waking up early again. My plan is to do a 10-mile run tomorrow, and I think at least one of the guys is going to join me (he ran for UT). This evening, the Starbucks that is next to our apartments gave us free drinks, and I am not sure words can do justice to the feeling I had when I sat down to sip my tea. It was incredibly relaxing.

Tomorrow as I mentioned will be our first rest day and it will also be the first day that Team Rockies is complete. The father of one of our team members had a heart attack a couple weeks ago and had to go through surgery. He's stable and doing well now and encouraging her (our teammate) to get out on the ride. Apparently he was telling all the nurses and doctors about the ride and he is very excited to see his daughter be out on the road with us...and we're all excited she's coming!