Day 8: Santa Maria, CA

Last night when we went to bed, we all assumed today's 75 miles to Santa Maria would be a piece of cake compared to yesterday's 115 mile mountain climb. However, when we got out of bed our legs could hardly function; I seriously felt like my legs had been exchanged for a corpse's. It was a chilly morning (again), and the clouds initially spat on us for a few hours. As the day went on the clouds parted and the sun began to shine. It was a fairly hilly ride, mostly agricultural. But I learned a very important thing today. After a long ride, you need to hydrate, hydrate, and hydrate. I failed to do so after yesterday's century and paid the price today. At around mile 65 I began to feel really chilly, even though it was eighty degrees. My friends kept pushing me to the finish and by the time I arrived I hardly knew where I even was. My friends threw there bottles at me and soon enough I was back to normal, right on time for our friendship visit at the Special Olympics Center of Santa Maria. I met some pretty incredible people, many were superb athletes. Taylor, a 19 year old multi-sport competitor, was telling me about her trip next week to go see Celine in Vegas for her birthday. I immediately told her about the story where my parents dragged me to a Cher concert in Vegas. The concert was a miserable experience for me but Taylor loved the story. Tomorrow we have a steep 70 mile ride to Santa Barbara, which I am more than excited for because of the friendship visits and the day off!