ironmen!

what a day! what a ride! at 7:45 my brother-in-law, fred, and my nephew, christopher, set on for what we thought was a 107-mile ride. the wind was out of the northwest at the beginning of the ride, but was predicted to swing around to the southeast later in the day. if we timed it right, we'd have favorable winds all day long.

i led for the first 10 miles, taking us over a number of my named hills - mock, bruce, antichrist, black dog and nine mile. we flew down the road with the west wind pushing us.

the wind kept pushing us when we turned south. all the way to caldwell, we were riding fast and easy. we turned into the convenience store after 27 miles. we'd been on the road just under an hour and a half.

after our break and a bit of refueling, we rode south into oklahoma. the state department of transportation doesn't care much for highway 81 just south of caldwell. it's a bumpy, rutted mess. our seats were beaten to a bloody pulp as we rode through renfro and on to medford.

in medford, we stopped again for more gatorade and snickers bars. we asked a half dozen people how many miles it was to manchester. no one knew. none of them had ever been there. the answer to our query, according to google maps, is 29.8 miles, but we didn't have google there, so we set out west without a clue how far it was to our next possible break.

the way west was painful. the wind had shifted to the south, but it wasn't consistently southeast or southwest. it sort of swirled around and mostly hurt us. the other thing that became apparent as we rode along is that every road in oklahoma goes uphill. we'd get to the top of one hill only to find that there was a short flat space and then another upward slope. it was funny for awhile. then it got disgusting. we stopped under the first trees we saw after the junction of highway 11 and highway 11a. if you haven't been to northern oklahoma, it is barren and today it was hot too.

about four more miles to the west, we came over a rise and for once the rode dove downwards. the only problem was in the distance we could see another hill climbing to the horizon. we groaned. i said, "i don't suppose it would do any good to pray that we get to turn north before that hill."

well, the next road - the one at the bottom of the hill we were descending - was highway 132, the paved route we'd been looking for forever. turning onto 132, we put the wind at our back and cranked up the speed. it was awesome! for the next 13 miles, we cruised along near or above 20mph. there were still uphills, but they were a piece of cake with a tailwind. we made it to manchester with gatorade to spare. not a lot of gatorade, mind you, but some.

we spent a long time in the air conditioned state line co-op. we drank the best tasting pepsis we'd ever had from ice cold cans. we refilled our bottles. we sat in the cushy chairs and dreamed of never leaving. thirty-seven more miles did not sound like much fun. sitting still did.

we finally got ourselves out of our chairs, loaded our water bottles in their cages and started out again. the first few miles weren't much fun. they were all uphill again. not steep uphill, but enough to annoy tired legs. after five or six miles the elevator at anthony came into view. we rode on, rounding bends in the road, first right and then left. two or three times that happened and then the city limits came into view.

i'd never approached anthony from this direction, so i wasn't sure where we were when we passed the welcome to anthony sign. we rode north until we reached main street. there we turned west and i suddenly remembered the old fashioned soda fountain at the rexall drug store. we pulled into irwin-potter's and enjoyed sodas and sundaes.

once again, it was hard to go on. we had to push and prod each other to move again. we swung our legs over the top bar, clicked in and pushed off to the west. three blocks later, we turned north, headed for harper.

we reached harper and pulled into domino's convenience store. i downed a 32 ounce pepsi at a booth inside and then we headed out one last time. i took the lead through town and out into the countryside on u.s. 160. my lead out was a strong one, over 20mph. for two of the four miles we needed to reach 100 miles, fred and christopher's original goal, we maintained this speed into the mostly south, but slightly east wind then chris needed a break. i backed off to 18mph for a couple of miles and then when fred said we'd reached 100 miles, i took off. he'd given me the go ahead to leave them to ride in slower, so i did that.

for the next 13 miles, i was over 20mph almost the whole time. i dipped a bit under that when i climbed l'alpe d'anville and again when headed southeast into the wind. the rest of the time, i was pushing it. i felt awesome! i looked at my time and tried with all my might to make it home before i'd been on the road six hours, but i just couldn't do it. i swung left into the driveway and pulled to a stop at three and half minutes over my goal. i wasn't all that disappointed though. i'd finished my first ever ironman distance ride at 18.4mph.

i opened the garage door, put my bike away, grabbed a protein bar and a recovery drink and went back out to wait for my teammates. they arrived about twenty minutes after i had come to a halt. they were riding strong. their finishing average was 18.2mph, just two tenths under what they'd been at when they passed 100 miles - their best century speed ever.

all in all it was a great day. none of the predicted thunderstorms popped up. the wind was almost always helpful to some extent. we didn't die! perfect! (112.04 miles @ 18.4mph)