Did a tough 400km over the weekend. The route itself didn't seem like much -- a bit of mild rolling, and a moderate climb in the middle... but the heat! The timing of the climb coincided with the hot afternoon with my Garmin recording as high as 42.8 degrees Celcius. I've seen screenshots of others with their Brytons showing 45C. Coincidentally the Meteorological Dept warned of an incoming heat wave the day after the ride, so I guess we were right at the precursor of it. Anyways, I wasn't really feeling that well for most of the ride; partly because I may have gone a bit too hard on that first 100km, also maybe something I ate the night before(?) that left me feeling bloated for the rest of the day that I wasn't really eating or drinking properly the whole time... which now that I think about it, was pretty dangerous. But anyways, I toughed it out, mainly because I needed this for PBP, and also because I was so far from home (3 hours drive) that I didn't want to inconvenience anyone if I abandoned.
By evening everyone was suffering from the heat that we decided to just sit it out, have an early dinner and get some sleep before heading out again. I think we spent around 90-120mins of that, which was I think a pretty good decision as I felt a little bit better after the nap. Still a lot of time wasted though, because by the time we reached the third checkpoint at around 11pm, that was nearly 17 hours elapsed time with 110km to go. Furthermore, the subsequent ride was hampered by a slower-paced night ride along with sleep deprivation issues. We stopped four times just for naps, plus one puncture stop in the middle of a relatively dark road with just a street light help get that inner tube replaced.
The last ~60km of the route was unpleasant, jarring broken roads that made my butt hurt. I got dropped within the final 20km, although I could keep up with the group's pace on the flats but my climbing performance was completely shot. Oh well, doesn't matter, we all completed successfully without that big of a time gap between us. 25:49 total elapsed time for me, and 16:57 moving time.
With that done, I have a 600km coming next month to fully qualify for PBP. Here's my ride video for anyone who's interested:
https://tinyurl.com/yxruluab