Bike MS 2024

[garrett-sutton]

a post to work on over time as I go through fundraising and the actual write up.

[garrett-sutton]

Started fundraising with Bracket for Bike MS.

[garrett-sutton]

![Uploading bikeMS_2024.jpg…]()

https://jkalphotography.smugmug.com/Celebrating-and-Supporting-Non/National-Multiple-Sclerosis-Society/2024-Multiple-Sclerosis-Events/2024-Best-Dam-Bike-Tour-WI/August-3-Up-Early-and-On-The-Road/i-WqxZQph/A

[garrett-sutton]

Saturday

• Drove up at 5:30 AM
• really hot today
• Loop 1 went good
• Loop 2 was OK. We worked our way through this one pretty well but it was starting to get tougher. Dad starting to think about whether we were going to do the third loop.
• Loop 3 got rough. It was really hot at this point. Really hot & humid. Clouds wide open. I did race a guy for a little bit and then just stopped so that I didn't get too far away from my dad. It was a lot of fun to grab a wheel and work a bit. This was also through the toughest section.
• I feel like I struggled with fueling. I tried out "Optimum Nutrition Amino Energy Sparkling" as a just try it out. I didn't get sick or anything, but I just felt like I wasn't able to actually soak up the food/water. Just a sort of empty feeling out there. I was imagining Tadej's "I'm gone, I'm dead" from last years tour.
• Lunch at the end was really good. I was cooked.
• Likely feeling the effects of yesterday's long run for a while.

[garrett-sutton]

Sunday

• drove up at 6:00 AM again
• Plan was to only do the 2 loops today so we could get back for my dad to hang with Gwen a bit longer
• Loop 1 went really well. It was cooler out, clouds, and we managed to get onto a group! We basically just stuck on their wheels for the entire 20+ miles. Beautiful morning too.
• This group was nice. The lady in the group had MS, her husband, and her father-in-law. Her and her father in-law were epic users and we chatted about the tour for a little bit.
• Grabbed a bit and headed out for loop 2
• Loop 2 also went well for us today. The sun really hadn't come out in the same way that it did yesterday and it felt a lot cooler. I also tried this LMNT salt stuff (a drink mix) that was good and maybe helped me(?). I felt so much better than yesterday.
• By the end it was getting warm, but again it was nothing compared to Saturday. I think knowing that we weren't going to do the last loop helped. I would imagine the last loop would have been pretty difficult too.
• Finished up and got a turkey-avacodo melt which was great.

[garrett-sutton]

Time spent

All in all nice to spend time with my Dad doing a good thing. Lots of quiet time and lots of talking time. Elections, people exercising, France, government waste, government regulations

The ride this year

The ride this year was really nice. I enjoyed the loop structure of it and it was a nice route. Not too much up and down but a good amount - especially on day 2. Day 2 on paper is probably harder than day 1, but it was definitely more fun. It felt like more variety of terrain and certainly was more shaded (even though it was pretty cloudy for most of the morning on day 2). They also had lunch (and lots of food) for us this year -- last year food ran out and we didn't get lunch...

[garrett-sutton]

people

I think we interacted with more popele today than we did for all of the last 2 years combined. Everyone we talked with was so kind and it was inspirational to see how appreciative the various people riding with MS were. I commonly got a "thank you for riding" and nice conversation from folks. One guy shared his story with my dad and I. He basically couldn't walk for 1.5 years and then started exercising. Now maybe 30 years later he's still exercising and doing the full MS 150.

[garrett-sutton]

fundraising

Between my dad and I, we raised nearly $3000! Really cool. https://events.nationalmssociety.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.team&teamID=64295

[garrett-sutton]

my mom ???