Evening the score.

Well, I did it. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch, but I made it to the top of Monte Sano.

David and I started the morning at 8 a.m. with a quick ride around downtown Huntsville. We met three others (Eric, Keri and Mary Anne) around 9 a.m. at Yellowhammer Brewery on Clinton Avenue and set off for the mountain from there. I ride with David and Eric frequently, but this was my first ride with Keri and Mary Anne. (I used to work with Eric and Mary Anne at The Huntsville Times, and both were hugely instrumental when I started riding.)

When we got to where Bankhead meets Toll Gate, I stopped and Eric stopped with me. My only goal was to make it to the Land Trust parking lot just beyond the S curve. This dreaded section is what turned me around the week before. We started and I made it past the curve signs posted on the left side of the road. We stopped just beyond them and several more times after that. I was embarrassed about needing to stop so frequently, but Eric was such a great encouragement. He’d pick a tree or a sign or a telephone poll and we’d ride to it and stop again, then pick another point. Once we made it to the Land Trust parking lot, the other three were waiting. Mary Anne offered some great advice about not completely stopping after a long climb and we rode around the lot for a few minutes before attacking the next incline.

The next grade was short, and then it was a gradual climb the rest of the way. I still stopped a couple of times, but eventually we made it to where Bankhead closes and the road turns into Fearn Street. I was incredibly light-headed at this point but thought maybe I was dehydrated. I had plenty of fluids the night before and during the ride so I checked my blood sugar and found a whopping 309 mg/dL.* Well, that explained the light-headedness. I didn’t do anything about it though, knowing I’d just completed a massive climb and had one more gradual increase to go.

We finished the ascent into the state park and I laughed when I saw the park sign. Man, I really wanted that photograph. 🙂 Mary Anne rode alongside me up the last climb. I was huffing and puffing, and she was barely breathing. That’s what happens when you ride with experienced folks, I suppose. But those same, barely sweating cyclists make me a better rider, too.

At the top of Monte Sano, we stopped at the park store for a water refill and it started pouring rain. We waited it out before heading back down the mountain. While I understand what goes up must come down, I was terrified to ride back down those inclines on wet roads. You can easily clock 40-50 mph coming down when it’s dry. Doing that wet could prove a bit trickier. No, thank you. I think we all gave our brakes a good workout coming down but we made it safely with no slips, no spills, no crash and no boom.

We made it back to Yellowhammer** about two minutes before the bottom fell out of the sky. And that 309 blood sugar? I finished at 161 mg/dL without any correction on the mountain.

My next goal — riding up Monte Sano without stopping. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

*Please don’t follow my lead on diabetes management; I am not a doctor. What works for me may not work for you. Typically, 309 is too high for exercising safely, but I started the ride at 172 and finished at 161. The in-between isn’t an exact science. More on this to come later…

**Another friend from the newspaper is a partial owner of Yellowhammer, and the brewery recently opened a tasting room on Saturdays from noon-8 p.m. (I highly recommend visiting.) The afternoon was spend in the company of amazing friends who helped me climb my mountain. It was a near-perfect day (which I seem to say a lot on ride days).