On Saturday, October 19th I rode my last long bike ride before Ironman Florida. I rode with Jason, his brother Josh, Shawn, a Beach to Battleship 140.6 trainee, and Rob. Jason, Josh and I rode 110 hard miles mostly in the rain. Jason is also competing in Ironman Florida on November 2nd. Josh was there to keep us (me) honest. When it wasn't raining there were plenty of puddles to ride through to keep us nice and wet. Shawn and Rob stuck around for the first 33 miles.
I felt good, albeit cold, for the first 75 or 80 miles but by that point I was losing steam. To put it mildly, Jason and Josh kicked my butt! Our ride started at around 7:30am. We didn't finish until 6 hours later. We made two mandatory stops at the Atlanta Trek bike shop in McDonough. Our friend Nick took the picture below during our second stop. Thanks Nick! It sure was warm inside the bike shop.
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| Neil, Jason, Josh, Shawn, Rob and Alex up front |
Our route took us on several loops over the same roads our local club rides follow.
The plan was to ride 112 miles and then run for an hour, basically a long brick. Josh, an awesome cyclist but not such a good runner, baled on Jason and I just as soon as we got to the parking lot. He said something about being late. That wasn't fair because that was my plan and since Josh beat me to the punch it made me feel obligated to run with Jason. I did the next best thing. I ran with Jason for 10 minutes. After that I hopped in my warm, dry truck and headed home. I suppose Jason continued running, but who's to say! If that were me I'd have quit just as soon as I saw the coast was clear. No witnesses! I need to eat more pasta.
Thanks for reading.
