On the back of my Fast Eddies bike ride, I met a girl who is also training for the Louisville Ironman and was looking for a biking partner to ride with her on her 5 hour ride the day after. It is really hard to find a biking partner who wants and/or needs to be on a bike for 3-4 plus hours so when I was introduced to Liz I jumped on the opportunity to bike with her. This would be my second day in a row in the heat on a bike for multiple hours but hey, I made a commitment and I stuck to it.
We had planned on doing a 72 mile ride (keep in mind my training plan only had me on my bike for 4 hours 15 minutes) because she told me that she really needed to be on her bike for 6 hours that day. We headed out and it was HOT. We got lost a LOT and had to back track multiple times. Keep in mind she is a MUCH stronger rider than myself. We hit mile 53 and she told me that her body was shutting down and she needed to head back to the car. We ended with 57 miles in about 4.5 hours. It wasn’t a strong ride as we only averaged 12.7 mph but hey, I got my hours in that I needed.
(Sorry no pics from this ride).
Knowing that I had a triathlon on Sunday, my long bike ride was moved up on the only day I could get it in, 4th of July which was 3 days after my back to back hot bike rides. I convinced a friend to ride with me. Tim didn’t know what was in store for him but he was down for whatever I had to do and for that I was thankful!
We decided go to the IL side since the trails are better over there and I had a distance in mind that I wanted to accomplish. We basically did the same ride that JD and I did a few days before except we didn’t go all of the way to Alton. At 9am it was 93 degrees. We stopped a couple of times to refill our waters and to take a break. The heat also got to him and it took a toll. The ride was a slow go but it was ok cause I had a biking buddy. The strangest thing we encountered on the ride was foam?
Still have no idea why this happened but we had to bike through it. Didn’t know if it was toxic but bike we must so plowing through we did (you can hear me at the end of the video say “what the fuck?”)
It was hot, we were sweaty and exhausted but we made it back and look….he’s still smiling! Lets see if he rides with me again.
Since it was the 4th of July, what else do you do but B-B-Q! I went over to Richie’s place since he was smoking meat and planned on having people over. The plan was to sit out back in the white trash pool while the meat cooked. I will admit, after 3 extremely hot days on a bike, the last thing I wanted to do was sit outside. But when in Rome or better yet when in company of fellow hoosiers, you follow suit.
Notice a few awesome things about this picture- 1. the pool is a metal cattle water tank 2. my sun heat rash that looks like a skin disease 3. the empty floating bottle of wine and best of all 4. Pauly’s awesomely short shorts and white legs!
I ate well that day but also my body shut down. I went home and crashed early. I can handle some heat but 3 days where there is a heat advisory and exerting a lot of energy just don’t go hand in hand. I really hope this isn’t a trend that keeps happening!
katie palmer moore 