^ Three preparatory cups of coffee and an astoundingly large breakfast (EAT ALL THE CARBS!) were only enough to coax a partial smile this morning. This was my first time attempting back to back 100+ km rides.
Saturday morning was 6 degrees (42 F) when I left. I failed to notice that the last half of my route involved about 430 m (1400 ft) of climbing, and the headwind was 35 kph (22 mph) with higher gusts. The weather network said that temperatures would warm up to 18 degrees (64 F) over my ride. It actually warmed up to 12 degrees (53 F). Some rather significant time was spent in the last quarter of the ride questioning the reason for my apparent inability to pace myself properly. I was shockingly exhausted, cold, and hungry by the time I rolled in to my mom's house four and a ja;f hours after leaving mine. Still had a nice visit, and got to see some cool sights on the way . . . but the last half of the trip was rough.
Morale was only salvaged by loudly belting out the lyrics I knew to the Future Islands 'Singles' album that I had playing over my earbud on repeat for pretty much the whole trip up . . . so apologies to anyone who saw the insane man with the glassy eyes and crazed out of tune singing on the bike yesterday. In my defense - fuck wind.
The ride home today in comparison, was pretty awesome. Again it was chilly in the morning at 8 degrees (46 F) but there was almost no wind and the route definitely went more down hill than up. I got back in three and a half hours, and this time I'm not hypothermic! :P
Currently eating my way through a large pan of brownies and downing copious amounts of hot chocolate.
Vital Ride Stats Over the Two Days:
Total bananas eaten on bike: 6
Total liquid consumed on bike: 3.7 L
Total wrong turns made: 2
Pee breaks: 1
Poorly chosen location for pee break that became painfully obvious as a mostly female peloton decided to ride by on a road I couldn't see when starting: 1
Times 'In my defense, it's really cold out ladies' was attempted: 2
Total crazy singing time to ward off tears at the unfair wind gods: 65 minutes
Sanity checks: 0