August Metric

A break in the humidity happened just in time for me to get my August metric century with a few days to spare! I rode X6 and started off very well, but mid way my feet got very sore with a pins and needles sensation and it killed my tempo. I also ran out of water and was painfully dry as the weather was still pretty hot.

Jeff kept me company for much of the ride, joining me 22 miles in and, fortunately, with eight miles still to go, Jeff took the turn to the house, grabbed some water and brought it to me in the truck. What a relief!!

At Sachuest Point, I stopped short to get a photo of this buck with velvety antlers. He wasn't at all frightened, even walking toward me a little! This is the closest I've gotten to a deer out there as they are usually out across the field more.

Garmin actually shut off on me during the ride, but I managed to notice pretty quickly and you can see I still got a distance of 63.30 miles. With the crazy pains in both feet and being dehydrated, my speed ended up at 14 mph overall...which was disappointing especially after a fairly zippy start to the ride. Oh well, I just don't do well in summer weather!

I'm really looking forward to the fall and starting to ramp up mileage again. I had a good 20 mile X6 ride today. I think the next metrics will feel a lot better, assuming we don't have early snowstorms or something!!

Hot Just to Watch

As I'm not feeling very energetic in this hot August weather, I got my bike 'fix' vicariously on Sunday by watching our friend Chris race the Blount Seafood Crit in Fall River, Mass. He was in the Cat 3 race and worked awfully hard. It seemed like he was rarely on a wheel as he rode past us. His 12th place finish was excellent! You can read his write up on his blog. But I'll share a few of my pics with you too, starting with my best shot of the day:

I'm still getting used to my new camera and get a lot of rear shots when I'm slow on the shutter.

There were lots of splits and if you look closely here, you'll see Chris making an heroic effort to bridge the gap, head down with the white shoulders.

I got a finish line video too.



If you googled to find pics of the race and are looking for someone specific, let me know, I might be able to help. I took some pics of the 3 man break and various pack shots that I would be happy to share.

Jeff and I missed out on watching Jamie at a Tri this weekend, he finished in spite of a crash and you should check out his blog post!!