Breaking away- from Bloomington to Cincinnati

I met back up with the crew late Monday night in Bloomington where we packed in the dorms to sleep. After a frequently interrupted 5 hours of sleep, we awoke early and I began reacquainting myself with the glorious feeling of my bike saddle (Ahhh, fond thoughts). Before we left, our host in Bloomington let us ride around the Little 500 track on a couple of the race bikes and told us a little about the history of biking in Bloomington. Everyone agreed it was a cool experience although few others knew anything about the magnitude of Little 5. Many riders have added "Breaking Away" to their list of movies to see.

Tim, our host, also helped us to reroute some of our ride to avoid gravel roads which we were able to do, for the most part. The ride was hilly and beautiful- as expected. We had our first rest stop in Nashville, IN which was a neat little town that I had heard of, but never been to. We road past a few lakes (Lake Lemon I think), through Columbus, Indiana, and by several farms and cornfields of course. We road until we got bored, then tired, then more soar, but then at about mile 95 the lactic acid either got to our brains or we hit an endorphin high from our rupturing thigh muscles and had a great time the last 20 or so miles. I pulled out the several pound box of cookies that my mom spent hours upon hours baking at our 75 mile stop for a new and much appreciated treat. There were actually enough cookies there for 26 exhausted people to eat their fill and still have leftovers- she went all out. Our total distance for the day: 117 miles, avg mph was like 16.5 which was great considering the hills.

When we got to Cincinnati, one of our riders who goes to University of Cincinnati College of Medicine arranged home stays for us with some of her fellow medical students. Christian and I stayed with Vince who had a way-to-nice-to-be-a-medical-student bachelor pad to himself. Vince was a great guy, destined to become a general surgeon- and a good resident he will be. Vince was energetic and on-the-ball. He had thought of everything as a host, from insisting that he will sleep on the couch and we take the beds (which we refused) to having his girlfriend bake us fresh cinnamon rolls for the morning. We were at Vince's 2 nights actually. The second day in Cincinatti we had an event day at the medical school, journal club, and some coffee shop time to catch up on email, blogs, residency paperwork, and etc.