All complete, with a total distance of 105 miles, and finished feeling a lot better than last year. And today, the morning after (and after a very good sleep), my legs feel fine.
It was a scorching hot day, but plenty of fluid did the trick (a massive 8 litres, with only about 300ml of pee to show for it). There was a breeze for most of the route, which helped keep me relatively cool.
Very hard to eat in the heat, and I only managed to consume about a third of what I carried with me, but even after my weight loss I still have plenty of kcals in reserve ;-)
Do it again next year? Well, this year was mostly a comeback from my poor fitness and inadequate preparation last year, and subsequent struggles, and I really just wanted to do a better job of it. Mission accomplished on that score. (As an aside, had last year's ride been in the same heat, I wouldn't have come close to finishing.)
I'm also still not a great lover of hills, and 4,500 feet of climbing is a lot for me - but the hills were considerably less hard this year (I almost said "easier" there, but that might imply some degree of easy ;-)
Still, I'll be 60 for next year's ride, and I quite like the idea of doing it with my bus pass in my bag :-) And I'll be significantly lighter again in another 12 months. We'll see.
that, or my clothes and anything in my bladder/bowels that isn't usually for my morning weigh was quite more substatial than expected.
