9:40 am, we flew into the first control, Morden, at 103 kms. Not bad - 28 km/h. We stayed there almost an hour eating, chatting, filling our bottles, etc. I had my traditional brevet "breakfast": French Toast and sweet hot tea, and it went down very well. This control, however, was where my "challenges" started. I had been fine on the bicycle but the moment I walked through the door of the restaurant, something goes terribly wrong with one of my main contact points, "my sitting area". I've never experienced anything like it but the burning was agonizing and everywhere! This ended my ability to ride with the faster riders as I had been doing and as I planned to do. Within 2 kms after that control I was all alone out there. There was one couple behind me who I figured would catch up soon, and the three of us would ride together.

For the next 6.5 hours, and 138 kms (21 km/h) I rode west in weather varying from a light mist to a heavy driving rain. There is an extremely strong crosswind and I really had a fight with it because it kept catching my packs. Sometimes the rain was coming down so heavily and the wind was driving straight at me that my right eye was blinded. I had to stop a number of times to clear my glasses, and wipe my eyes. The terrain had been flat to the first control, and I thought it would 'softly rolling' with the odd steeper hill in this section, but I was wrong. I climbed for the full 138 kms. Sometimes it was gradual - a false flat; other times it was quite noticeable. The only time I went down was to head down into a ravine which meant that I had an even bigger climb to get out. To make matters worse, I spent the entire time alone.

At about 125 kms of this 138 km section, the road turned north into the headwind. I could only manage 13 km/h! I had to travel 153 kms north into this wind, and I thought that if I could only manage 13 km/h there was no way I could make it. And yet, I was faced with exactly that, and no one in sight to ride with to draft or offer support or anything. This was a very low point of the ride for me.

I pulled into the control, Killarney, at the 241-km point desperately hungry and tired. There was no restaurant, but I was offered a premade beef and cheddar sub. I hardly ever eat beef at the best of times, but especially not on a brevet. I usually also avoid cheese on a brevet but it looked fabulous after all the sweet stuff I had been eating. I inhaled that sub! Meanwhile I had to make a few repairs to my bicycle setup. There were a few things that were a bit loose. Also, one of the sections of road had been really rough, and I had lost a screw from my lamp. I ended up using a ziptie to remedy the situation. Great things, zipties! I waited in the control at the 241-km point for 45 minutes to see if the couple behind me would catch up, but I didn't see them so I continued on.

Here a miracle occurred. The wind died! I couldn't believe it and when talking later to the riders who were ahead of me, the wind never died for them for the entire northward 153 kms. Also, after almost 12 hours of misting to raining, it finally stopped and the sun peaked out a bit. I had a lovely ride for the next 69 kms to the next control averaging 18.9 km/h. The route took me through an area of Manitoba I've never been before, lots of hills, and actual scenery! It was starting to get a bit lonely though, and I began chatting with the horses, cows, and birds I saw. At one point I almost got run over while "mooing" at some very cute calves which had all run to the fence by the side of the road to look at me!

I arrived at the next control, Glenboro (310 kms) at 9:28. My estimated time of arrival had been 9:30 so I was quite pleased with that. I was there 20 minutes hoping that the couple behind me would catch up. While there I discovered that packaged "honeybuns" found in convenience stores have 670 calories and they taste so much better than the energy bars I had been eating. I also bought a large cookie which I put in my handlebar bag for later. I donned my reflective gear to prepare for the night part of the ride. Then I left the control alone. The couple had not caught up.

I was not so lucky with the wind this time, it had picked up again, and I had 84 kms into it. By 10:30 it was fairly dark and I discovered that my main light, which I had to fix with a ziptie, only shone on an area about 3 feet in front of my tire. My backup light is either a bright LED or a regular light, so I turned it on to LED (that lasts longer) so it cast a bluish glow a little further out. Then I wrapped my helmet light straps around my handlebar bag and pointed it out front as well. That way the road was fairly well lit.

The road from the 310-km control for the next 38 kms went through a forest/campground area, which is very pretty in the daylight, but is sort of spooky all alone in the middle of the night. A deer startled me not long after it got dark by leaping out about 20 feet in front of me and crossing the road. I also saw a coyote on the side of the road, and a beaver on his dam in a pond by the side of the road. The road was hilly and also extremely rough with gaping holes now and then. I was very relieved to arrive at the small town at the end of this road. My ETA here was midnight, and I had arrived at midnight. By now I was very tired of riding alone in the dark and I decided to see if I could get a room. After 15 minutes of cycling around looking, I discovered that the motels were closed. I had no choice but to continue cycling northward.

The first 18 kms on this road went by very quickly, but the next 27 kms to the control just dragged by. The road to Neepawa seemed to go on forever. Unlike most prairie towns which you can see the lights of for kilometers, I didn't see the lights until I was about 1 km away. Otherwise all I saw was complete blackness. Meanwhile, I was in the middle of a Discovery Channel "Nocturnal Animals" special! More coyotes (a couple of which ran along side me for a minute or so), skunks, a badger, and raccoons all appeared by the side of the road or crossed the road. I also saw 1000s of eyes in the ditch looking at me. All through this section I was talking out loud to everything around me, and I know I was weaving all over the road.

Suddenly out of the dark, the oddest-looking car approached me. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, and then I heard the faint screeching of brakes and a voice called out to me. The route had us go north to Neepawa, and then back south again to Hwy 1. These were the frontrunners, the couple on the tandem, and one of the guys on a single. They told me that Peter and Neil had just arrived at the motel in Neepawa, so they weren't very far in front of me. All along I had been asking about cyclists at the controls and was told that the riders were anywhere from 1 to 3 hours ahead of me, but it turned out they weren't actually that far ahead! They had really struggled with the wind, where I had a long section of calm, and they had stopped much longer than I had at the controls along the way.

Half an hour later I pulled into the control at 2:35 am (avg. 18 km/h). The person at the desk told me that the guys had just gone up to their room, so I dashed up there with my bicycle in tow and they were just getting ready to go to bed. They made room for me, I downed a can of Ensure plus, and we slept for the next two hours. I had just made a personal record: 291 kms of solo riding! That's a record I'm not anxious to beat!

We gathered ourselves together, the guys had cereal and I had a cup of hot sweet tea, and just as we were about to leave the control, the couple behind us rolled in! They were 3 hours behind and more than ready to sleep. Peter, Neil, and I headed out at 5:30 am with a tailwind - that was great! It was pretty cold out, though. Unfortunately about 35 kms down the road, both of the guys made a sudden pitstop to lose their breakfasts. They continued to make these pitstops for a little while, and we tried to push west into Austin (avg. 25 km/h!) so they could get something to settle their stomachs. This stretch was also had some good sized rolling hills!

Austin was 469 kms into the ride and normally, by this point, I can't eat solid food. Oddly, however, I felt great and was hungry. Even though it was 8:30 am, I chose a turkey sandwich which went down very well.

The guys felt a bit better now and so we set off for Portage La Prairie, fighting a bit of a crosswind, arriving there at 11:35 (avg. 18 km/h), 25 minutes before the mall opened. Neil wanted to pick up some liquid nutrition at the grocery store and Peter just wanted to rest a bit, so we sat in the sunshine on the sidewalk outside the mall with our backs up against the building and waited. This was the first time in 30 hours that I had really been warm! I drank my last can of Ensure Plus and ate about half a muffin.

Then we set off on the last leg of the journey to Winnipeg. We were all getting a little sore and tired so we made a few stretching stops along the way. At a gas station about half way there, I downed a 470 calorie cinnamon bun hardly believing how much solid food I was eating!

12 kms from the final control the road turned south again and we had a good tailwind. The pace increased for a while to 35 km/h, but we decided to bring it down a bit and just spin in. We rolled into the final control at 4:03 pm (avg. 26 km/h for the last bit).

I felt fabulous! I was so excited that I was actually dancing around! Not only had I qualified for the PBP, but I also had a personal best time (34:03) which was 1 hour and 15 minutes faster than my previous personal best, and I had done the whole thing without even a tinge of nausea!

That was the most challenging 600K I have ever done. It was also my best 600K.