Stage 20!

90.72 miles in 4:51:08 for an average speed of 18.7 mph. I was challenged till the end since the wind was pretty strong for the last 30 miles, but I just kept powering through it (17.5 mph into the headwind with a heart rate of 145). Slept in and started at first light at 5:16 am. It was 69 degrees at the start and 79 at the finish. I drank 1.25 gallons and ate 1300 calories. Lost 2 lbs.

When I stopped for water at Chad's home, he came out and rode a mile or two with me (he has started riding for 35 minutes every day.).

4 miles from the end I caught up with another biker and rode back to town with him. I had not met him before. His name is John Coil (sp?) and is a nice guy that does quite a bit of biking.

Wildlife: 4 rabbits and 2 deer.

I almost can't believe that I have finished the tour a second time. I think that it was easier this year mostly since I had prepared better by doing 7 centuries every other day before it started. The only day that was really tough was stage 11 when I almost abandoned. My average speed increased from last years 18.22 to 18.56 mph.

I do think that doing the tour is far harder than any other athletic event that I have done. Running marathons, ultra marathons, and triathlons (I have not done an Ironman triathlon) is not nearly as hard. The fact that it is a multistage event over 3 weeks is what makes it difficult.

The "Tour de France diet" works pretty well. I lost 5 lbs over 3 weeks by forcing myself to eat as much food as I could take in (between 6,000 and 7,000 calories per day).

Now I have to add running back into my routine. Last year it took 3 to 4 weeks of gradually increasing back to 6 miles per day before my body could adapt to the stress of running. I'm hoping that it does not take as long this year.

Acknowledgments:

Special thanks to Marlene Slough for the idea of having a blog about this version of the tour.

Thanks to Chad and Mary Mattingly for providing water out on the course. It was quite useful to not have to go back into town to get water when I had run out.

Thanks to Bike and Hike for getting me such a great bike (Trek Madone 5.2), keeping me supplied with tires, tubes, etc., and dropping everything to fix my rear shift cable in the middle of stage 6.

Thanks to Bill Slough and Andrew Mertz for riding a lot of miles together, both during training and during the tour.

Thanks to Bill and Andrew for giving me their spare water on various occasions which saved me a refill stop later.

Thanks to my wife Ellen for taking such good care of me during the tour. She provided excellent nutritious food so that I would recover and wake up ready to go each day. The pasta salads, pasta and vegetables, spinach salads, and a continuous supply of "gunk" (a mix of oatmeal, plain yogurt, and pineapple) kept me fueled for 3 weeks.