Close but no cigar..

Yesterday  I tried for a imperial century, (100 miles).  I hadn't ridden one since September 2012 and as I am heading for Wichita Falls and the Hotter than Hell 100 next month I wanted one in my legs before the event.

I'd managed 81 miles in the Tour de Cure in June but due to leg cramps and stomach issues I stopped at 81 miles.

Yesterday, I left the house before it was light as the day was promising to be hot, (what a surprise for Texas in July). I was hoping to get my ride in early and beat the temps but it warmed up a lot quicker than expected.

My route took me over familiar terrain and some stuff I'd not ridden before as I was wanting to explore some new roads and do a little bit of reconnaissance for the route for the Red River Rally.  Riding west out of Gunter on 121 was fine, I'd been that way before, turning north on Wall Street put me onto a new road and some new ground to explore.  At Wall Street is going to be part of the Red River Rally I wanted to check it out should I decided at the last minute to give it a try.  Wall Street is a dentists dream, lots of pot holes and rough stuff from 121 all the way up to 902.  Might be interesting trying to ride that in a group.

FM902 west to Collinsville was only something I'd driven before, never ridden.  The road was nice and smooth, no shoulder but all traffic was more than polite.  At Collinsville I was hoping to find a quickie mart to water up but didn't see anything as I went through town, once into Collinsville I picked up HWY 377 south to Tioga.  Tioga gave me a stop at a quicky mart for water, gatoraide and a Marathon protein bar.

From Tioga it was down FM121 back to Gunter and heading south to run toward home.

However the more I pushed into the headwind, the slower I ended up going.  Stopping for water, food, and stretching didn't really help.   Around mile 65 or so my legs started signalling they were going to start cramping, the stomach was shutting down processing whatever I was trying to eat due to the heat and workload. 

By that point I was just working to get from one stopping point to the next.  By the next stop I was done.  I knew that what I had been feeling in my left calf the day before was starting to blow up into possible tendonitis, my right leg was cramping, and my stomach was not processing even water.  I was done and made the call to Vicky to roll out for a pick up.

78 miles, so close but no cigar.

Strava data is here.