I'll never forget a few years back when a bunch of us were at a ride doing
the 25 and we had such a great time. We were saying how great this distance
was because your done by 11:00AM, your not thrashed and you can start
relaxing a lot earlier than the 50s. We elitist 25 milers were laughing at
the poor saps riding the 50 who had to go back out after lunch as we sat
sipping on cool drinks. We were clean for the awards dinner while many of
the 50s were still dirty from a full day of riding, we were first in line for
dinner because we weren't busy cleaning horses and our camp chores were done
hours before. At the awards we even got the same completion award as the 50
for going half the distance. What a deal! We smirked as we saw 50 mile
riders walking back from awards with at least a grade three lamenss downing
their advil and aspirin. We weren't even sore!
Of course, the next month we were those 50 mile saps leaving the lunch
break...