Had a good/bad weekend. My mom is not allowed to have the 4-year-old overnight ever again.
I don't even know why she was staying at my mom's place Saturday night, but I dropped her off and my mom and some of my other family came up to have a birthday lunch for my wife, aunt, and mother the next day. She came back to us majorly short on sleep and ended up being a disaster to deal with once everyone left. Just breaking down over every little thing. Once I finally got her in bed and was telling her a story, she was out within minutes.
In cycling news, I did a short jaunt to check out part of the course I'll be riding this Saturday. Got chased by a dog uphill on a gravel road. You can probably see my HR spike where it happened.
I was mostly checking to see how the first long drag north on the pavement would be. With a good tailwind, it should be a chance to relax, but after a bit you get into some short steep hills. The second gravel road on the course is actually pretty fast with a slight downhill and then kicks up a bit, but not so steep you can't keep a good pace. Which is handy when the dog comes after you. It was pretty muddy after the freak storm the previous night, but not impassable. The tires worked great at 45f/55r.
It was also a good chance to test out the new hydration pack and make sure the fit was dialed. It felt great and not at all intrusive/heavy. Overall, I'm starting to think I need to focus on survival for the ride. It will probably start at around 95 degrees and get as low as 80 if I'm lucky by midnight. The last one I did stayed relatively cool and then got rained on. I haven't been riding much in the heat this year, and it really sucks it out of me. Maybe I'll have to shoot for sub 5 hours for the 70 miles.