Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Graid route is complete.

Yesterday was the day to finish up with the GRAID. The GRAID was this idea I conceived up this past spring. It was a 270 route across Iowa in a day. Dennis Grelk, Steve Fuller, Matt Maxwell, and I started in Lamoni, Iowa on the southern border and made it to Ames around 10 at night, roughly 14 hours and 157 miles total. Dennis and I left Ames around 12:30 after eating and chilling (mistake!) and when we rolled within a block of my house in Gilbert it was just too easy to quit so we called it a night.

Yesterday was the day to finish up the last 113 miles. I took off from Gilbert at 6:00 AM sharp and made it to Belmond at mile 62 at 10:30. There was NO wind at all so it was easy going. I made it to Garner at mile 83 around 12:00 where I took a 45 minute break to rest up and eat a big ol' burger at Hardees. I continued on and made it to Emmons, Mn. at 3:25. Nine hours and 25 minutes for 115 miles (took a wrong turn and went an extra 2 miles. That certainly is the fastest I have ever gone that distance. Why can't Trans Iowa have conditions like that? I think my average speed while on the bike was 14.3 which is very good for me on the gravel. I will admit, for the last couple of hours I did have a 10 mile per hour tail wind.

Once in Emmons, I turned around and head back southwest to Forest City for a 28 mile ride to my parents house. I will admit, I took this very easy and did not push at all. It was more of a tour of unridden roads. I stopped in Lake Mills for a chocolate malt (there is nothing better when it is 90 degrees and humid!) and some down time. I stopped at my mom's place in Leland and then continued on to my dad's house about 4 miles down the road. I was home by 6:30 pm. So, 143.6 miles in 12.5 hours. Not too bad for me.

I hope to get some more riding in before heading to Vail. Hopefully I can get some riding in there. I can't wait.

Happy training.

2 comments:

gpickle said...

Hey hey, way to finish it off Paul!

Mark said...

Hey,

Mom called me on Saturday to tell me how crazy you are. That's awesome though. Nothing too new here. Might be coming home for Christmas.