day 23: remember me for…💯

Murphysboro, IL to St. Louis, MO — 101.4 mi, 2540 ft

surprise suprise! sarah is back sooner than you thought! unfortunately (as you may have read a few blogs ago), tian took a nasty fall in some gravel, and is taking some time to recover in the car. if you did not get the Fall Out Boy reference in the title, today was our 1st of 3 century (or 100+ mile) rides! she gracefully gave up her blogging day so that we could hear about this feat from the biker’s perspective. get better soon tian!!! ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 get cozy ‘cause this is a long one…

our day started bright and early around 6am at our warmshowers host jessica’s house. i had taken the time the night before to roll out my legs and stretch a bit, and i was definitely thanking my past self for that this morning. biking is tough on the legs, of course, but now that we are through the initial 2 weeks of general discomfort and soreness, there are other parts of my body that are starting to hurt that i was quite surprised about: my hands hurt from putting weight on the handles, then that tension extends to my shoulders and neck, my back will sometimes hurt from being hunched over for so long, my knees have started having some problems occasionally as well…i think stretching and rolling will be my saving grace, just gotta stay consistent ‼️ we had a lovely breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and fruit (which i washed down with some milk, per usual), got ready and packed, and set out around 7:30am—pretty close to our goal of 7am. we even got some team pictures before we left! good hustle spokes!!! 

as we set off for our 1st of 7 legs of the day, i was feeling GREAT, and SUPER excited to take on the challenge of a century ride. i settled in with ishaq and greta, and we talked for a bit about how we envisioned our futures (living situation, family, etc.) charles eventually catches up, and we hit our 1st of only 4 climbs of the day (for context, in the hiller parts of virginia and kentucky, we could have up to 20-25 climbs over a 70-80 mile ride!!!) i am VERY curious how garmin calculates climbs: is it a specific ratio of distance to elevation gain that must be met? a certain bar of grade? what are the garmin gods doing?? 🙂‍↕️ anyways, our longest one was up first, about 1.5 miles: i consider anything above 0.5 miles to be a considerate distance, so i was not a super happy camper going into this. even with ishaq’s beckoning to catch up, i eventually fall behind the group. as probably our slowest climber, “spokes is a marathon, not a sprint” is a mantra i have to repeat to myself very often. towards the end of the climb, though, i see ishaq coming back down the other side of the highway. “why is he back here? is there a route problem? is someone hurt?” are all questions racing through my mind. turns out, he came back to help me finish the climb! the extra support (both physically and mentally) truly made my ride, and reminded me that spokes is something we are all in together, no matter our various abilities, strengths, or weaknesses 🥰 we spent the next few miles attempting to catch up to greta and charles, and while it was in vain, we made it to the 1st rest stop very speedily. i ate an apple (skin and all—shocking to some of you, i know), and we played on the playground, naturally. there was a shoe kicking competition on the swings between ishaq and charles, but both we’re quickly humbled once greta—a “real shoe kicking demon” (as dubbed by charles)—came into the ring. as some of the others start playing some complicated version of monkey in the middle invented by middle school charles, ramona, ruth, and i take the opportunity to start the next leg.

not gonna lie, i was FLYING down the 2nd leg: with the combined power of music and flat, straight ground, i was cruising around 17-20mph, putting down laps of 5 miles in around 17.5 minutes. this leg held sights of the occasional patches of wildflowers and a few sets of train tracks, which were lovely! i pulled into the 2nd rest stop singing “I Bet You Think About Me” by Taylor Swift (ft. Chris Stapleton), munched on one half of my DELICIOUS egg salad sandwich (less than after i sadly dropped some on the pavement :((), tried and failed to find a bathroom, took a generous donation of electrolyte tablets from joseph, then proceeded to the 3rd (and my favorite rest stop): a coffee shop 🙏🏻

for the 3rd leg, i decided to switch it up a bit and try to watch TV while biking—specifically the first 2 episodes of dan dan dan i had downloaded on netflix. while i had almost finished the 1st episode a few months ago, i decided to just start from the beginning. while this strategy works on side streets, it’s a bit too much on busy roads and highways, so i ditched television for the last few miles and went back to music. lately i’ve been listening to high tempo, high energy pop to keep my rpm up, especially on flatter, more boring stretches (if you got any recs, drop em! plz i’m desperate). eventually i make it into town, and i see that garmin wants me to bike straight into a building. huh? i laugh and assume that this building is new and hasn’t been updated into garmin’s maps yet, manually reroute, and eventually make it to the car, where ramona and ruth are also ranting to joseph (our main route planner) and tian about the aforementioned route error. we eventually all make our way into steam coffee house, get drinks and food, and settle down for a longer break. i start digging into my 2nd lunch—some of last nights curry with rice, chicken, and plantains—along with an iced chai latte with raspberry and apple cinnamon muffin i had bought from the cafe. we all do taste tests of each other’s food and drinks (like usual), calculate how much of our personal funds we’ve spent on spokes (props to tian for being at only $7!!!), then wander back out at of course the hottest part of the day to keep going 🔥 🔥

i honestly can’t remember much from the 4th leg. whoops. while heading out of sparta, i catch up to the car before it turns into walmart for a grocery run, take a selfie, then keep chugging along. later on, the head winds start to dampen my spirits a bit, things start to hurt, and in the distance, amidst dark clouds, i see a few bolts of lightning. yikes. i make it to the church for our 4th rest stop, the rest of the team arrives a few minutes later, and THEN the car pulls up. we all give them a hard time, saying we had been there for half and hour already (it had only been max 10 minutes), then all sit down in the shaded grass to chat. i snack on the newly purchased dried mangos. we all talk and laugh, and while i can’t remember what it was about or why, all you need to know is that this is a pretty usual thing for us :))

as i head out for the 5th leg, i call my twin sister brooke for the 4th time, and she FINALLY answers. we we’re supposed to call while i was biking and she was running, but she tells me she slept in and decided to run at night instead. now, she is tanning outside while watching the 3rd season of squid games that had dropped that day, which she eventually hangs up on me to watch instead of keeping me occupied on my very long, very hard bike ride. rude 😐 i then call sierra, my best friend at MIT, and we catch up while she plays stardew valley. i nearly get hit by a flatbed truck that comes within 6 inches of my left leg, my life flashes before my eyes, and i eventually decide to let her go after my service gets spotty. i catch up to ruth and ramona right before the 5th rest stop, and as ruth announces that she is going to pee behind the van, and i complain about how i’ll have to wait until the next rest stop to go myself, we pull into the stop and realize it has a porta potty. yippee! this stop was some kind of track for flying model aircraft, and was the only thing within miles that could even be set as a marked rest stop, so we got really lucky. i was peacefully eating the 2nd half of my egg salad sandwich in the driver’s seat when joseph decided to check the radar and ruin my so far pretty decent ride: “yeah, it’s DEFINITELY going to rain before the next rest stop.” i grab my rain jacket out of my duffel, and after waiting forEVER to use the bathroom after a spokie that will remain anonymous (*cough* *cough* CHARLES *cough*), set out in a pack with ruth and ramona, straight into the storm ⛈️

joseph had mentioned that a few miles into this leg, we would hit a really nice bike trail that would lead us straight into st. louis, and that it would be best to make it onto the trail before any storms hit. we get onto the trail (before it storms!), and it is NICE. getting to bike on clean, designated paved lanes miles from any highway or road after almost getting hit by a gigantic automobile earlier in the day was a RELIEF. as we made our way into the city on maintained bike lanes, past speedy light rails, i felt very thankful for the innovation that is public transportation. while people in boston complain about “the T,” coming from las vegas (which has NOTHING), i think it is AMAZING. if the T has no fans, i fear i am 6 feet under. after i get a call from joseph with a VERY IMPORTANT question (the color of sun glasses he was buying for me), and charles gets a scam call about a seized package of his in texas (he hasn’t had anything shipped in days), the “storm safety” groups get a bit mixed up, so i start riding with charles, while the pairs of ishaq and greta and ramona and ruth go on ahead. it sprinkles on and off, but we don’t get hit with anything NEARLY as bad as we have had in the past few weeks. PHEW. charles and i talk about pets and other things, we make our last climb, and turn into the family dollar just outside of eastern st. louis (the part still in illinois). i take a look at and approve the glasses that joseph and tian bought for me (thanks guys!), chug a strawberry milk to get a jump start on my protein intake and recovery for the night 🍓 and start making my way to the arch with the terrific trio once again consisting of myself, ramona, and ruth. 

after being on city streets for a few miles and getting a few light honks with seemingly mixed signals (a polite request to move over? a gentle encouragement to keep going? we’re going to be optimistic), we start seeing the arch popping in and out of view in the distance! a friend of mine said it was underwhelming, but i thought it was pretty cool (no hate to you, sierra!) as we start crossing the bustling bridge into missouri and st. louis proper, ruth—our life-long boston native—is BEAMING with joy at being in a real city again. “the buildings are big and tall!” she cries! i love cities myself, but my fear of being within inches of speeding cars took over, and i gently asked her if she could stop breaking to take pictures and videos so we could get off the bridge faster. love you ruth!!! 💗

finally, we enter a grassy, wooded park, and as the tree line breaks, we at LAST see the arch towering above us, set over an open area with the mississippi river on the left, and the city of st. louis on the right. i had looked on apple maps earlier in the day to get a solid idea of how far we had biked into the united states, but this truly solidified how far we had actually gone! joseph and tian eventually join us from the car on their bikes, we take pictures, some of us buy stickers at the gift shop, and we start the last 5 miles of our journey to our warmshowers hosts!!

about a mile out from our hosts and JUST before i officially hit the 100 mile mark, my dad calls me! he tells me about an emergency simulation event he went to at the local military hospital through his honorary commander position with the air force base in vegas, and says i’ll be a great er doctor one day. i let him know that my garmin beeped to signal i had hit 100 miles, he congratulates me on my 1st century, and i let him go once i make it to our hosts place. to have so many supportive people in my life—whether it be my family, friends, classmates, track teammates, and now my fellow spokies—on my side while i pursue these big goals i have set for myself—biking across the country, vaulting higher than ever, graduating MIT and going to medical school, and simply becoming the best possible version of myself—is truly the biggest blessing in my life ❤️

we get settled in with our host for the night nora, who makes us pasta (spaghetti and penne, because she understands like me that spaghetti is not a top-tier pasta) (i will die on this hill) with meatballs and salad for dinner. she gets us hooked on love island, we meet her 2 dogs and 2 cats (one of them being a maine coon that kept rubbing up on me that is NOT helping with my distant dream of owning one, even though i am SERIOUSLY allergic to cats), and—after a bit of logistics reworking and GRACIOUS help from our host—the spokies eventually decide to stay in st. louis another day! we all get ready for bed, and i crash the bed duo of ruth and ramona, squishing 3 people in a 2 person bed (thanks guys), exhausted but excited for the next day’s rare opportunity to explore rather than just pass through 🏙️

…ok i know this was a long one. sorry!!! it was 100 miles, there was bound to be a lot of story to tell! to go back to my short tangent from earlier, though, this wouldn’t be the story it is without the people. joseph mentioned a few blogs ago the sentiment that quite a few hosts have shared with us that we seem to be an especially close-knit group (spokes or otherwise), and i couldn’t agree more. i am thinking back now to a few months ago when i first got accepted to spokes—realizing i’d be gone my whole first summer home from college, i considered trying to push off my acceptance to the next year, or even take the chance and apply again the year after, not knowing if i’d ever get accepted again. now, i can’t imagine having done this with anyone else. a big thank you to my fellow spokies for everything—from cooking meals, refilling waters, and fixing bikes to providing much needed encouragement, perpetually lending a hand (figuratively and literally), and sharing so. much. laughter. i’ll probably miss that the most once this is all over 🥲

ANYWAY, this thing is NOT yet over, not even CLOSE, so here’s to TAKING RISKS and STAYING PRESENT!!! see you next time as we continue to make our way across missouri from jefferson city to sedalia!

with love,

schmitty 😇