95 miles on the bike today, Austin to New Braunfels out and back. I was aiming for 120 miles, that didn’t happen. It was quite the cooker, I started at 11 AM when it was already 88 F and it got hotter in the afternoon. Breakfast consisted of two ham/egg/cheese bistro sammiches from Sonic, which set well. Ten agonizing hours on the saddle, half of that into a brisk headwind. I kept my gear on the middle chainring, taking it easy into the wind. By the time I got to the 45 mile mark at the T/A truckstop on I-35 around 4 PM, I was wore out. I ate a bag of Chex mix, a sodium tablet, drank a liter of water, gave myself a Aquafina shower. That felt pretty damn good, I was recharged for a while. Having a tailwind now helped matters too.
By the time I made it up Old Bastrop Road to San Marcos, I wasn’t feeling well again and still being cooked. Popped some Tylenol to take care of my pounding headache and ate some gel. It was slow going all the way to Kyle. Stopped at a Texaco; ate a banana, a big sour pickle, a can of Pringles, and another sodium table. This really got me going again. The sun was setting now, making it much cooler. I felt an order of magnitude better, shifted into my big chainring and pushed in the last 20 minutes.
I pondered doing laps at the park to at least make it an even 100, but I wanted to go home. I was actually hungry after finishing, which is a good thing. Usually after many hours of riding I completely lose my appetite. It’s clear that eating a lot is the key. The Pringles+pickle+banana dinner set well, no apparent digestion problems at all.
I was ready to give up, call off Seattle-Portland because it’s just so boring putting in this many miles all the time and 205 miles is a ridiculously long route. After cooling off, I convinced myself to stay in the game and see what happens.
Myspace now has international translations, about damn time.
