Seven Hour Day

The plan for the day was 400 mins. An order made a bit taller in that I started on about 4 hrs. of sleep. I was not quite sure how far I would need to go. I figured I would throw several loops together, all ending at home so I could refuel every 2-3 hours and limit how much I would need to carry. I started with the Westford loop as the skies looked pretty good to the east. It took me about 2.5 hrs to get around the 30 miles--a bit slow, but there is a bunch of climbing and the day was about pacing myself. After the first pit stop, I headed out for the 40 mile loop which runs along the west side of the lake. The skies were starting to look ominous but moving pretty fast to the east--I was fortunate to only get about 10 mins. of rain which was welcome in that it cooled off a ridiculously humid day. The rain must have been heavier earlier, the roads up in the hills were pretty muddy--always fun to ride in the mud, but I try to avoid it as much as possible on long rides in that it bangs the drive train up and, well, you know grit in the shorts is a real taint buster. Upping the pace a bit, the second loop took about 3:10.  Two loops down and I still needed about a hour to hit the 400 min. mark. I was getting a little concerned that I was going to run out of daylight, so I wanted to stay close to home but I needed about 2000 ft of climbing to hit the 9000 feet so I headed back to Campbell Hill and started zig-zagging up and over for the next hour and 50 mins., hoping to beat the light and hit my marks.

All told I got 6:53, 84 miles with 9400 ft of climbing--not bad!! I must confess I felt awful today and it started early--about an hour and half into the day I knew it was going to be a really, really long day. The good news--my nutrition went just as planned--even with Accelerade which is just plan nasty, no GI issues--I was hoping the new Infinti "Jackrabbit Brew" would arrive, but no such luck. 

I still cannot get over the notion of going for a 7 hr ride and relatively how easy it has become--we'll see how the 6 hr back-to-back days go! 

A little muddy but still looking fresh.

Yeah that's right--22% grade at 5:49 and 7090 feet of up already in the legs--it made me think of words like suffer, sufferfest, carnage, blown-up..... you  get the picture.

 
I knew I felt like s#$t but I look like death--taken on that 22% pitch.

A welcome sight, but I had to up the pace to get over Murphy Hill before I ran out of light.

My legs were so shot by this point, I actually felt pretty good hitting the gas.

The top of Murphy Hill--all down hill to home with about 10 mins to spare.

Yes, I'm flexing--I could not help myself--showing off the tattoo of today's labor.

That's what 9400 feet look like on paper--looks kind of easy doesn't it?

Click on it.