4:55 pm. I’ve been on the bike now for about 11 hours. Had to turn the lights back on, and as I pulled the last little grade before the descent into Benton City I fished around in my pockets for some food. Alas, all that was left was some fairly experimental tuna wraps, which I had been saving all day. Or avoiding. Anyways, with another 20 to go to get home, no choice but to start eating.
5:05 pm, rolling through Benton City, cheating the fog line to stay away from the debris field in the bike lane. Larry is a few yards ahead of me, with some nicer lights than me, so I am watching sort of watching his lights part of the time. Choose the wrong part of the time and just barely noticed a lump in the road – too late to swerve, which was probably better. So I just tagged the slimy front end of a dead cat, but only side slipped an inch or two.
Anyways, turned out to be a nice day for a ride, although the sun never managed to burn through the fog. This time of year tends to get a little tough around here with the rivers generating a constant bank of fog, but at least there was no precipitation, and the temperatures weren’t too bad. I was out of Spiz so I had to rely on good old fashioned food, which is a bit inconvenient when you are used to just reaching for a bottle when you get hungry.
The only drawback to the ride was the nagging reality of work on Monday – I had convinced my boss that a 4 day work week was going to be better for all of us as I ramp up the training for RAAM, but was going to have to go in and work on this particular Monday due to a “problem child” repair on a house with some water damage in the ceiling. So now instead of backing the ride up with a nice leisurely century to recover the legs, I am forced to back the ride up with a short morning on the trainer followed by a long day working on a ceiling.