I was fretting this one. You'll recall that yesterday's winds gave us a preview of what was possible out here (fortunately we had howling 30 MPH cross and tailwinds, not headwinds, but Ma Nature coulda fixed that in a nano second) and the thought of slugging out today's 117 mile route in those winds was giving me the willies. The weather report from last night wasn't awful (90 degrees and NE winds @5-10 MPH), but it wasn't what we wanted either, since we were headed east.
I was up and moving around by 4:30 and the morning was dead still and cool. Hmmm, I thought, this isn't what I expected. In fact, we heard that things had changed a bit and they were calling for more favorable winds, which is what we got. We had fairly mild winds today and it was either a crosswind or from time to time, it actually got behind us and pushed- always appreciated. Temps today probably stalled out in the mid 80's- a Godsend compared with last year's ride, which the staff claimed was 106 in the shade. Hello? How do I rent a car?
Today's ride was what I call "Prairie Monotone"-
we rode a two lane road through rolling prairie for 118 miles. We had 50'-200' rollers (approximately one million of them) for nine hours, through wheat fields, hay fields, corn fields and open prairie. (Uh waiter, I ordered mine flat...) Nothing more, nothing less. I spent the day with Jen, Brett and Russell and we had a lot of laughs.
This is our fifth century on the tour (sixth if you count the 97 mile day- which I do- wanna make something out of it??). Physically I was really surprised at how I felt today. No aches or pains and I had really good legs. I'm starting to notice a pattern on these long rides- somewhere in the last 20 miles I get a shot of adrenaline or something. I felt amazingly fresh at the end. Now, laying on my bed in the hotel, I feel like a zombie- but on the ride I felt terrific. Weird.
Had a really funny time talking to Marianne from CA at one of the sags. She has a great sense of humor- at least she makes me laugh. We had a lightning round with "put out your eye" jokes. Rots a Raffs.
My ride total is now around 1,800 miles and I have 20 days left- about 1,400 miles
