aikigreg
|
So Friday I spent hours and hours in the thunderstorms and got (sun) burned and trashed. Saturday was iffy so I stayed out of the Peach pedal. And was glad I did since yesterday I tackled this George Evans route from Rockwall to Canton, to Tyler, and Back with Steve Barlowe, Mark Metcalfe, Gary and Dana, Debbie Breaud, and Charlie who I don't think I knew. Legs were a little heavy and rubbery at the start, so it was a good thing I'd taken all of Saturday off. I still hadn't recovered from the 11 hour 200k on Friday. This route is an out and back, and is extremely deceptive. It's nearly downhill all the way to Tyler, and I hadn't noticed it at all. The stops were all chop-chop and Steve Barlowe and I hit the turnaround control, and the first control on the way back, way ahead of everyone. But I was feeling it by then and wanted to stay inside in the a/c until I stopped sweating completely. It didn't help that I was under-caloried. Hot water and mix, and very little food that works with my diet left me under-caloried. Steve and I left behind everyone but caught up after a few miles. Mark Metcalfe decided, like he always does, to just start ratcheting up the pace and I hung on his wheel until we started some seriously long climbs up to Canton. We'd catch up on a couple good downhills but mostly Mark just drifted away and we rolled into the control a couple minutes back behind him. (I say we, and I mean ME. Steve could have gone on at any time - he was great on the bike even after a layoff.) Everyone again rolled out ahead and this time we never caught up. I thought I had a loose cleat and stopped (it's just finally wearing out after 20k miles), Steve lost a bottle, and then we hit this section of rough road, then 2 stretches of pretty nasty fresh boulderseal, uphill, sun right in your eyes. I was limping along and in a lot of pain and took an extra long break in Terrell as well as one on the side of the road, where I noticed my FRONT tire unraveling. Got some calories and painkillers and things were much better after that. The sun had fallen just enough and cooled down just enough that my pace picked up and we rocketed back to Rockwall. Had an awesome time in spite of the heat, and no nausea so I think I'm good there now - I was really worried about that. Also had my longest rando weekend ever (524k) and my fastest 300k time in spite of everything with a 15h5min. What's not to like?
|