Today was Stephy's baby shower and, since I was being turned out of my house like a common wastrel, I figured it was a great time to get in a good long bike ride. I've only done two long rides this year, El Tour de Phoenix, and Tour of the Tucson Mountains—both about 70 manageable miles. I thought I'd head out and do about 60 miles today, out to Oracle and back around.
I'll tell you right now, I only did 51. It was windy as it has been in a long time. Most of the way out (which is uphill) it was fortunately at my back. That helped. Still, by the time I got to the Biosphere 2 site (okay, Biosphere 2 is about 22 miles north of Tucson—do you know where Biosphere 1 is?) I was ready to stop for a rest. My weird little heart/chest thing acted up and I hadn't been drinking enough. That was probably the biggest cause, too. What didn't help was my hydration preparation. I took two water bottles and full hydration pack. Unfortunately, I completely froze the hydration pack, one of the bottles, and a quarter or so of the third. The pack never melted so I basically hauled it around on my back the whole time. The fully frozen bottle was still half-frozen when I hit my halfway mark. The first bottle still had a nice chunk of ice in it as well. There's no way I was able to drink enough at that point. Fortunately, my turnaround point was a small market just beyond the Oracle turnoff. Of course, their card reader was not working and they could only take cash. Luckily, I had a five dollar bill and was able to get a Nature Valley peanut better granola bar (delicious), a small Gatorade (not a big fan), and a "green tea" flavored Sobe drink (Foul—have these people never tasted green tea? I think it was high fructose corn syrup flavored!). I ate the bar and took a few sips of the Sobe and then poured the drinks into my water bottles, drinking what didn't fit (ice takes room, you know).
It was so windy coming back that there were several spots where I was almost literally blown off the road. Kind of scary, really. There was a ride a few years ago where I was just a bit north of that very spot and my bike was actually blown out from under me. This time was close, but I never lost control of the bike. Today's high was 93 degrees, but it definitely did not feel like it most of the time. The wind really kept things feeling cooler. In fact, any time I stopped the wind wicked away any sweat and made it down right chilly. It took a lot longer coming home than I had planned. It's almost all downhill coming home, but even pedaling downhill I was often only going twelve or thirteen miles per hour. I'm slow, but I'm not that slow! Not downhill, anyway.
I can definitely say, though, that I can't claim to be ready for El Tour. If I had to ride El Tour today, I might have finished it—I'm masochistic that way—but it would have taken a lot longer than ever before. That's probably going to be true when it actually comes around, unfortunately.
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