TSB: -7
It's about ten degrees warmer than last year which turns out to be huge. Take three bottles with me but this ends up being three less bottles than I will need. About thirty minutes in we reach the first hill, and examining the data reveals we were not going hard at all but lack of fitness or the heat takes its toll and seven or eight of us are dropped including me. After another thirty minutes I recover and pass three riders by the turn around then feel much weaker in the slight headwind and have to ease up.
Running low on water, too, so have to conserve, and I countdown the kilometers until the neutral feed. I stop sweating before then, and considering stopping but there is no one around for as far as I can see, and don't want to be lost off the side of the road and at this point judgement impaired too, probably, so I keep trudging on, and there are no houses that I can mooch water off of like at Leesville. Then I get chills 4 km out from the feedzone, which is a pretty bad sign and have to slow even more. To add insult to injury my feet start cramping and I have to pedal one legged while I shake both of them out intermittently. Finally reach the neutral zone and they have one bottle of water left, for which I am very thankful, and consider drinking the 10% bleach solution they are using the clean bottles. Get on the bike again, and pick up any bottles with water on the side of the road, and still run out of water with 16 km to go! Now I would actually like to quit but the only people I see are the p12 riders who are finishing so I continue at a snail's pace to the end. My reward is a massive headache that lasts for twelve hours.
This ended up taking me 25 minutes longer than last year, survival mode for 27 miles is pretty slow...
T: 3:25:04
D: 89.4 km
S: 26.1
Pavg:117
pnorm:157 - wow seems like I went really easy, but felt really miserable at end of the day.
1 comment:
That had to be a reall tough pull out there on Sunday. I am glad I had other plans
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