This is Unpossible

I'm a little proud of myself.

Today I rode 100 miles on my bike in the Minnesota Ironman Bike ride, and I didn't get a sunburn. I even got a little suntan. This is unpossible. My skin, for my entire recollection, is one of three colors, ghastly, red, or peeling.

This is like divine intervention. It's April, and my skin hasn't seen the sun since September. I spent nearly 7 hours in 80 degrees sun with very little cloud coverage.

I did, however, shellack all exposed skin with SPF 50 at 7:30am, but I didn't expect it to last.

Anyways, I hope to keep this up and not get burnt this summer. I've done it way too many times.

Long detail on the ride below........

As far as the ride goes, I spent the first 30 or so miles riding with Clif and Jesse, who are both in phenomenal shape, as they've been training for Ironman Zurich. After a while, I just couldn't hold at their pace.

So I rode alone, and as I was passing through the tiny town of Montgomery, I was passed by a large group of riders (who came up on my left). There was a right turn that the front riders didn't see, and one came across the entire group and caught another cyclist. The unlucky guy he ran into was directly in front of me, and cartwheeled over his handlebars, helmet smacking the pavement. I was able to get out of the way, but missed the rest stop. 20 miles down the road I was out of fluids, with another 15 to the next town.

That hurt.

I stopped and chugged gatorade, water, and had some nutrigrain bars. I took a salty nutroll with me. That salted nutroll provided some great energy when I was on the road. I'm going to use them in future long rides.

Nutrition on long endurance events is something I'm still honing. My sweat composition, as I've discovered, is very salt dense. I eventually got behind on my electrolyte intake, got some leg cramps, and bonked. I ran into Jesse and Clif at the last rest stop, and Jesse gave me a salt pill, which probably helped me for about 5 miles. The last 15 miles had a heavy headwind, which was exacerbated by a slow leak in my back tire. I stopped to pump it up a couple times, but it ended up flatting with about 3 miles to go.

The last hill back to Lakeville High parking lot was some of the slowest cycling I've done. Ever.

Lessons Learned:
+I sweat alot, and have a high need to replace electrolytes.
+Get ahead on hydration and calorie intake
+Don't ride with a leaking tire.
-Dont buy Specialized tubes. They suck