The Plague! (okay, it's not that bad!)

With only 5 ride days to Istanbul, (What! Five! Crazy!) we riders seem to have picked now to get sick. One by one, we've passed the illness around. For the last week, not a day has gone by without a rider in the car due to illness. The day before yesterday, it was my turn.

I woke up in the morning dizzy with a fever and decided it was a good day to hang out with Phil in the car again. After a four hour nap I felt a bit better and yesterday morning decided to get back on the bike. As luck would have it, the day I rode in the car was 80 km of mostly downhills and some flats. One group did the ride in three hours and everyone agreed it was an easy day. Yesterday morning, I was only a little dizzy, and decided to ride regardless and see how far I could get. I rode with the group carrying the emergency phone, just in case.

Thirty kms into the ride, nausea hit, but I decided to keep on going, stopping for breaks as needed. Ironically, I felt better on the bike then when stopped. Then we rode up into an amazing mountain range, climbing up, up, up and still further up. The view was amazing! 40km or so of climbing and then riding along the mountain range followed by an amazing downhill.

All was well until we stopped for a drink break. It was as if in those ten minutes, the day caught up to me. I had hit the wall. I thought of stopping and getting a pick up, but we were less than 30kms from our destination. Those last 30 km, with 3 killer up-hills, were a struggle. I think I rode them on will power alone. Finally, one last downhill into the town Kardzhali, our final destination for the day.

Happily, today is a day off. One more day to put the dizzy behind me and prepare for the last five days of riding. Turkey, here we come!