STP 2023

Day 1 – Seattle to Centralia (July 15)

After several nights of stress dreams where I lost my bike or forgot my cycling shoes, the big day arrived. When I awoke at 6am, I tried not to think about what was ahead of me that day. After quickly dressing and loading my bike onto the car (my other gear was loaded the night before), Billy and I drove to the UW parking lot and the start line.

Billy took some photos of me after I donned my tutu and helmet with the unicorn horn. I was wearing the costume to help support the Trevor Project since I have a grandchild who is trans-gendered. I also wanted to ride in solidarity with my friend, Benjamin, who lost a trans child to suicide last year.

When I got to the start line waiting for the next group of riders to be given the go-ahead, Lee Lambert, Cascade’s director and emcee, noticed me and called out my name and bib number (#1) to the crowd. I got to wear the #1 bib because I was one of the volunteers of the year for 2022.

Before I knew it, the ride started and I was off. I was feeling pretty rested and felt great, but I still wasn’t thinking about the miles I had to ride. Instead, I thought of this first part as just one of the long rides I do from time to time. The morning was already getting warm and I hoped I could handle the heat and not get heat exhaustion, which I’m apt to get.

The first rest stop was around 20 miles in at Kaiser Permamente in Tukwila. I saw RJ and a few other Cascade staff and said hi, then refilled my water bottle and headed out for the next stretch. I tried to focus on each 20 miles or so between rest stops rather than the total distance I had to ride that day.

Meanwhile, my brother, Billy, was doing SAG for Cascade with my car. He called and was very stressed out because he couldn’t get the Zello app to work properly. He didn’t feel adequately trained on the app, couldn’t figure out where to go and couldn’t hear anyone from the ops center. He was near tears. I told him to take some deep breathes and do as best as he could.

When I got to the mini stop in Puyallup, volunteers were on hand to pour water into our bottles. The line to the honey buckets was around 45-minutes long, so I decided to hold it until the next stop. Luckily, about a mile up the road the Masonic Lodge had a sign saying their restrooms were open plus they had cold bottle water. No line and such a treat! I was so grateful, I donated to their food bank fund!

By the time I got close to the lunch stop in Spanaway, my stomach was upset. I had to pull over and walk back to the weeds where I proceeded to lose my breakfast (and remains of last night’s dinner). In spite of drinking lots of water, I had overheated and was familiar with this situation.

At the lunch stop, the first thing I did was eat a popsicle, which helped cool me down. I also had a couple bites of sandwich and half a bag of salt and vinegar chips. My appetite was low, but needed the extra salt.

Temperatures continued to climb so when I got to Yelm and saw a Starbucks, I stopped to get a frozen mango dragon fruit refresher to cool off. My friend, Claire, was there also cooling off. She is an Outrider for Cascade and said stopping here was a STP tradition for her. Sitting in the AC, I was getting cooled off inside and out.

Refreshed and cooled off, I felt like I got a second wind and before long I was in Centralia and the finish point for the day.

So many people recognized me by name and my Instagram posts. Others hollered when they saw I was wearing the #1 bib. It felt good being so popular, but also a bit self-conscious.

Even though Cascade had a place for STP Ambassadors to cool off in the AC and get special snacks and drinks, I was too hot and tired and just wanted to go to the hotel and check in. It had gotten to 91° today!

Billy was already in Centralia at the college waiting for me, so we loaded up the bike and drove to the Quality Inn.

While checking in, we ran into Jean, a veteran Cascade SAG volunteer. She sat with Billy and went through the Zello app with him and gave him lots of advise. She really helped Billy feel better about his role so I gave her one of my Top Banana awards.

Our room wasn’t quite ready so we went to Country Cousins for dinner. I had a frozen pineapple lemonade and some turkey, dressing, French fries and gravy. I didn’t know how hungry I was until I started eating! I could only eat about half of it, though, since my stomach has shrunk so much from losing weight.

Back at the hotel and checked in, Billy was sleep by 7:30pm. I managed to stay awake until 8:30pm. I had a small leg cramp, but was able to get rid of it after drinking some concentrated electrolyte water.

Day 2 – Centralia to Portland (July 16)

I was dreading this second day a bit because it included what other cyclists call “the dirty 30″…a 30 mile stretch of road along Hwy 30 in Oregon. Not only are you riding on the shoulder with speeding cars going by, but it offers little to no shade. It was also promising to be another hot day, but at least it started off cooler. Cool enough that I had to wear sleeves for the first half.

I started my ride at the Centralia College and headed out. The first half of the ride was long country roads and farm land. Because of the cooler weather, I took a little more time and talked to people along the way. There were also more mini-stops on the second day and I took advantage of them to get off the bike and rest my sore bottom.

One of the first stops was in Napavine after a long, steep hill. Susan and Gene were there handing out home-made banana bread as they have been doing for over 30 years! Gene was wearing his banana print shirt and Susan had on banana yellow. The Top Banana award was designed and handed out in their honor.

Billy was doing much better doing SAG for Cascade since Jean’s tutorial and I was relieved that he wasn’t stressed like the day before. He seemed to be getting into the groove of his role and assisted many riders.

I didn’t eat lunch at the Lexington rest stop since I had just eaten a chicken tender from a gas station some miles back. My stomach was a bit queasy and I feared a repeat of the day before. The first aid station gave me some Tums and I felt fine after that.

Too soon it was time to ride across the Longview bridge into Oregon. It’s a bit of a climb as it arches over the river, so I made sure I was at the front of the pack since I don’t have any gears. I didn’t want to get stuck behind someone and lose my momentum, then have to walk the rest of the way. When it was time to go, which they did in stages, I pushed off and was way ahead of everyone. It was so scary, though, riding on a very narrow shoulder alongside vehicles, especially the huge RVs! On the down hill, a hand-pedal cyclist was going very slow and I couldn’t pass him due to the traffic, so I was breaking a lot. Water bottles and sunscreen where strewed along the shoulder due to expansion joins knocking them loose from their bottle cages.

I was finally in Oregon! It was so hot riding along Hwy 30 and I again stopped at a Starbucks for a frozen drink in Scappoose to cool off.

Along the highway, I saw a lot of riders changing their tubes due to flats. I prayed I wouldn’t get one.

As I approached the bridge that crosses into Portland, I knew there was a big hill to get up to it. Traffic was heavy and there were a lot of bikes slogging up the hill. Again, due to no gears, I couldn’t afford to get behind a slower rider and said screw it to myself…the cars will just have to wait and proceeded to use the entire lane to fly by the other riders. I’m sure they were wishing they had some power assist to help them, too!

Once in Portland the next five miles seemed to take forever as I wove through town to get to the finish line in the park across from the Double Tree hotel. By the time I was entering the last stretch of the finish, my second bike battery was flashing that it was about to run out of juice.

As I rode that last little section, people along both sides were ringing bells and applauding. A huge wave of emotion hit me out of nowhere and I was fighting back tears as I braked to a stop. Lee immediately found me to take a photo. He asked how I was and I replied that I was feeling very emotional. The tears started to flow as he engulfed me into a big hug.

I dropped off my bike at the bike corral, removed my tutu and helmet, then went over to the park’s water feature and stood in the stream of water until I was fairly wet.

Next, I retrieved my souvenir tee shirt and finisher badge after running into Portia, another friend.

I met up with Susan, who I knew originally from The Mountaineers, but who also volunteers with the baggage truck during STP each year. We sat and talked while drinking a beer, then she treated me to a 30-minute massage. Since my shoulders were really sore, this was such a treat and so much appreciated! If I hadn’t run out of Top Banana award stickers, I would have given her one!

After the massage, we walked over to the hotel where I met up with my brother. He already checked in and the room was ready. The shower felt so good!

We ate dinner in the hotel and I could barely eat half my burger and fries. I was tired and still a little emotional.

Right before I fell asleep, though, I got massive leg cramps up the inside of my left thigh and right calf. I could barely walk to the bathroom where I ran a hot bath the soak and try to calm things down. I then had a concentrated drink of water with electrolytes in it and that seemed to keep things calm the rest of the night.

Aftermath

The next day we drove back to Seattle after breakfast. I wasn’t too sore and it all felt like a dream. Did I really ride that far? Several days later, I’m still asking myself that question.

Did I really ride that far?

I’m not sure I’ll ride STP again, but am considering riding RSVP next year. I’m just happy at this point that I proved to myself (and some skeptical family members) that I could ride 207 miles at age 64!

I have another adventure this coming Saturday….riding the Summit 2 Sound event. I’m sure there will be many more!