May 2

It's ride day!

I rode with my neighbor, Chris, most of the day. This is us at the start line.

Mom was super-excited.

Here we are at the start line!

So at about 1:30 p.m., it started pouring rain. We rode in it for a while, then were told to pull over and stop since the ride had been called. I had made it 70 miles, and I would have finished the whole thing given the time. Chris and I had gotten separated a few miles earlier, so I pulled over at a Valero with some other riders to wait for a SAG van to pick us up. We sat under a metal roof, against a metal pole, under metal emergency blankets (it was freezing!) with lightening everywhere. It occurred to me that this wasn't the best idea, but we didn't really have much other choice. Finally, my dad came and picked me up and took me to Texas Motor Speedway, which had kind of cleared out at that point as well.

At 5 p.m., we had a team picture scheduled. We had 150 riders on our team. This is who showed up for the team picture.

Even with the storms, though, it was a good day. We ate dinner at Waffle House, as is Team EDS tradition, and slept very soundly that night despite the crazy storms outside.