| A group of 7 of us met at 5 am and set off into the first rays of dawn. It was fairly warm with a noticeable east wind. I rode near the front for a little while with Peter on his recumbent, but was quickly dropped and rode alone for the next few kms. My legs just felt tired. Crossing the Garvin Rd mtn range (haha) was even difficult for me. As I was going over the last of those little hills, Dean on his recumbent was just emerging from a pitstop, so we ended up riding the rest of the way together and he let me draft quite a bit. His recumbent sits fairly high - somewhere between Peter's (very low, not much draft benefit), and a regular bicycle.
It felt like we fought the wind all the way out to Elma, and I was just managing about 20 km/h, however it was sunny, and was warming up quite a bit, so that was a nice change from most of my rides. I started shedding layers along the way. We stopped for breakfast at Elma and I had eggs and toast. Before the PBP eggs would have been one of my last choices on a ride, but there were scrambled eggs on the PBP and at a couple spots I chose them as a more appealing source of protein than what else was offered, and they went down just fine. So I tried eggs again on my fleche with good results, and again yesterday. Eggs aren't that bad! Water. For those of you who live in an area where you have good water year round, which you can get from a tap, consider yourselves lucky. It may seem almost amazing to some that there are parts of Canada where the water is not fit to drink, but there are, and the prairies is one of those spots. A couple years ago we were warned not to drink the water in one town because of the e-coli bacteria, other times the percentage of fecal material content in the water source makes the water undrinkable, and sometimes there's so much algea in the water that it just tastes really bad. I'm not sure what the situation was in Elma, but when we got there we were told that we needed to buy bottled water - the tap water was contaminated. We had a beautiful tailwind up to Powerview, and by that time I was just riding in my short sleeved jersey - that's a first this year! I've actually sunburned my arms a little bit. I like the route to Powerview - the road is pretty rough, but I enjoy the scenery. It's very rocky through there with light forests and as we go further north, we start to ride along the water. The leaves on the trees are just starting to come out so there's an attractive contrast between the spiky brownish-gray of the trees that still don't have leaves, the lime green of those that are starting to grow leaves, and the dark green of the pine trees. Powerview's restaurant was closed, unfortunately, and my food choice from the convenience store there probably wasn't the best, or enough, because I suddenly bonked down the road a little ways. With a quick combination of Ensure and Hammergel, I solved the problem and we were able to carry on. The route down to Beausejour wasn't as bad as I remember from previous years because there was a crosswind instead of the usual headwind - but even that felt pretty strong in places. It's funny -- I always thought of that stretch as treeless and baren, probably because any trees along the side would have made no difference at all to a direct headwind, but this time it seemed like there were quite a few trees! Amazing how a change in wind can give a person a whole different perspective on a route. It started to rain lightly as we neared Beausejour so we donned some of our raingear. We had supper in Beausejour, put on the rest of our raingear, then set off in a heavy rain to Lockport. For a little while the wind was from the south - more crosswind, then it flipped back to east and it was a great trip to Lockport, the rain even stopped for a little while. After a brief stop in Lockport we headed for Winnipeg. The way into Winnipeg wasn't bad for wind either - it's pretty sheltered there, but the rain started again. That last 20 kms seemed really long to me - my legs were done and it was all I could do to keep pedalling. I completed the 321 kms (200 miles) in 16:40 which is my fastest 300K. My quads are finished! I've done over 1000 miles this month and a lot of long rides! They just ache right now, but a few times out there I wasn't sure if I could keep moving. I've done way more than this later in the season, but jumping into a month like this right at the beginning of my season might have been a little much. Fortunately I've got 2 weeks to recover before my 400K. I'm going to rest!
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