6.28.14 Iron Distance Bike

Jeff's plan called for 110 miles today.  The weather gods were not cooperating.  It would be windy, humid, and hot. What isn't there to like about that.  I decided to get up at 3:45am and drive to the FloMo CAC in order to use my truck as an aid station again.  I packed cubed pineapple, watermelon, two peanut butter and honey sandwiches, lots of water, ice, gels and Skratch.  I have one bottle on my bike dedicated to dry Skratch formula, Accelerade, extra gels, vaseline and any item that will fit inside a water bottle.  I have two other bottle slots on my bike.  I left the CAC at 4:30 and left my special needs bottle at home.  It's always something but no problem.  I was going to do 30 miles before meeting Shelby and his group for 50 miles at 6:30am.  I rode back home, picked up my bottle, and tooled around Coppell until I got the 30 miles in at 6:30.  The humidity made things tough even before the sun came up.  I drank almost both bottles of fluid before getting back to the CAC.  Once there, I reloaded everything for the 50 mile ride with the group.  We went out to Robson Ranch and back.  We stopped twice at 35W and the donut shop at 377.  I had a Kolache at the donut shop and it was great.  I managed Hilltop road without too much of an issue but we started heading dead south at that point into the 15-20mph wind.  It was at least 13mph when I left at 4:30 and was building.  Some of the gusts had to be in the 30mph range.  It was brutal.  Seemed like there was no rest or easy sections in that kind of wind.  I had put out a flare to see if anyone would go the last 30 with me but there were no takers.  I ate a sandwich and reloaded all my bottles and nutrition.  I couldn't remember how far it was from one end of Spinks to the other.  The road runs east and west.  I didn't really want any part of the south wind so the initial plan was to loop the road until I made 30 miles.  On the first loop, I decided doing this loop would bore me to tears so I headed to Murrell park at Lake Grapevine.  The worst section into the wind was downhill so what the hell.  When I made it back to the CAC, I only needed about 7-8 miles to get to 112.  No sense doing all this work and being 2 miles short of the race distance.  I timed it out just right and made it back to the truck at just over 112 miles.  It was a long and hard ride and the majority of it was alone.  That was the worst part.  I was really tired at the end and almost nailed a road barrel while I was in my aero bars.  My mental focus was not great.  I clipped the barrel but it didn't knock me down.  Good thing, the other side of the road barrel was mud and rebar.  It's kind of dangerous towards the end without anyone with you.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/530277958