77mile Illinois ride

Brad, Nathan and myself decided to ride the trailnet ride in Edwardsville, Il on Saturday. I woke up tired from a rough week of work, skiing, and riding hard on my bike. We had ski practice at 7:30 and planned on leaving at 9 for the ride. After practice I was a little worn out but ready to ride. We made the hour drive and pulled into the parking lot. I know one thing, I should have eaten much more before this ride. We took off onto the flat terrain of illinois. I think they picked out every good rode and decided for us to not stay on them. The trailnet guys picked some rough ass rodes for us to ride. We started cruising about 21-24 miles an hour and it seemed like an easy pace to hold on the flats. We each took our turn leading the pack trying to conserve our energy and work together. About mile 25 or so, I started having a little trouble. We started a decent climb and my legs started to give out. It was like I hit a wall or something, just couldnt pedal through it. I slowed way down and watched Nathan and Brad pull WAY ahead of me. It took a while for them to realize that I was way back there and they slowed down for me waiting to catch up. I was hurting. It lasted for about 10-15 miles. We stopped at a rest area and I ate a banana, energy bar, gatorade, and water and stretched out for a minute. Then we realized we were going the wrong way taking the short route. We had to backtrack about 4 miles and get on the long course track. Now I was feeling much better!!!! I almost called it quits but you now me, I cant quit anything and pain is just weakness leaving my body. So I changed my bike computer to read my cadence and tried to keep it around 80-90. That started to work very well. We kept our average speed up the whole time around 19mph, which is pretty quick counting the hills. I looked down at my computer and it read 51 miles, a new personal best for me, so I was a little more pumped up at this time. and the best part is that we only had around 20 miles to go. So with a little more life in me, we pushed on. This was about the time that Nathan started having some issues. I will let him tell you if he wants to. He pushed through it and his problems seemed to go away just like mine did. Brad looked to be getting tired but never showed to many signs of sore dead legs or other issues. We pushed on and finally hit the city again and home sweet home there was the truck. 77 total miles in 4 hours. Pretty good ride for being 27 miles longer than my previous best.
I was going to do a light spin today to get the blood flowing the legs but decided to just get up and walk around at the swivel tournament at the lake. To my surprise I am not tired, nor sore today! Maybe one or two good rides this week, then off to Evansville Indiana friday and saturday for ski shows, then drive home Saturday night, then off to Farmington for the race on Sunday morning!

Jay