Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

Alas, the Ride of Love has finished its 24 hour endeavor. The last few hours were very difficult for everyone and hard to stay motivated. Most of us were either desperately in need of sleep or exhausted from cycling so many hours. Though it warmed ever so slightly for a bit, a strong cold wind came in, and the rain started to pick up.

I struggled so hard to stay awake, that I eventually was forced to hop onto a bike and try to get some adrenaline pumping. It actually helped quite a bit, but once I finished a wave a tiredness really set in. Abbey was visibly tired, and started shaking from the cold. We wrapped her in a blanket but with the rain and everything getting wet, it didn’t help too much. She really wanted to get back home.

During the lunch ours, Chick-Fil-A set up stand beside us and started handing out free food. We happily gorged ourselves with chicken. Two of our mountain bikers also provided some entertainment. Ryan performed some cool wheelies, bunny hops, and all sorts of other things like riding up stairs and jumping off them. I believe at one point he crashed into the snow but I missed that one. Which brings up Sean. He attempted to go on rollers for a first time and like everyone else who tries them for a first, slid right off. No harm would have come, have he not setup the rollers in between both the tents. He crashed into the pole of one tent and wiped out, nearly toppling both tents.

In the very end, the excitement grew again as we knew our long hard journey was coming to a close. When the clock struck 1500 and we counted our remaining donations. We came to a total of 557 dollars! We met our desired goal with a little bit extra to spare. Ride to Anyplace (that’s the benefit race for leukemia) here we come!

Clean up was quick and mostly painless. When all was said and done, I found myself in my room at around 1630 or so. My original intention was to stay up for a bit longer. Why not try to hit 48 hours of no sleep? I was only a few hours away. Besides, I didn’t want to throw off my schedule. If I fell asleep right away, I would wake way too early in the morning. Unfortunately none of that happened and I’m note entirely sure how. The fact is, I don’t remember anything. The last thing I remember was me cleaning up the mess of items on my floor from the ride.

I suddenly found myself awoken by Abbey around midnight who had to desperately go to the bathroom. I must have been really knocked out because we only made it to hallway floor before she preceded to piss all over the place. After swearing at Abbey and scrubbing the floor I found myself unable to go back to sleep. Now, for a fracking forth time in a row, I am awake for the new day literally at the beginning of it…midnight. Yes, I’m a little frustrated right now.

What’s odd is the state of things when I awoke. One, I was in my bed. I specifically remember not wanting to even sit on it for fear of falling asleep. Two, all my lights were turned off. Once again, I specifically remember keeping them on to aid in not sleeping. Three, I was in my PJs.

So this is the scene I’m concluding to. I was moving around cleaning up my mess, when suddenly my entire body fell into a sleep walk state. I then proceeded to strip off my clothes and change into my PJs, shut off all the lights, and tuck myself into bed. LoL. Suffice to say, I’m not ever attempting to stay awake that long again. BTW, the final count is 41 hours of staying awake.

All the photos for the 24 hrs event are on my Flickr Page.