Today, riding-wise, I had one of my best days.
Similar wake up like usual. Got breakfast and a leftover cookie. It was freezing cold. It may be June but when you’re up 6000 ft of elevation and add a little wind, it gets real cold.
We headed out as the second or third to last pace line. The first 10 miles, I was struggling. It was pure hills plus head wind. After an hour or so of misery, we finally got to some flats and the occasional downhill plus head winds. Now, to give you an idea of how big an impact wind has on my day, I’ll throw around a few numbers. A few days ago I was going 30 mph on flats effortlessly, mostly because of tail winds. Today, I was going 10 mph of flats wasting so much energy, mostly because of head winds.
So here we were going 10 mph, but we were working hard. Harder than all the other pacelines. We past the endless vast Nevada desert and eventually got to Eureka, Nevada, the closest town from Austin worthy of the title, “civilization.” As we entered the town, we arrived at lodging, today at an elementary school. To give you an idea of how hard we worked, we were the first pace line to arrive at lodging and the next one didn’t arrive until 45 minutes. It’s the past few days that gave me a little realization: I have some of the strongest legs in the team. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of room for improvement, but I’m real glad that I ran almost every day, because I feel like not only do I have some of the strongest cardiovascular strength but also one of the quickest recovery time. You can hear a lot of people complaining about their quads and their hamstrings, and Ill I got to say is that I’m thankful that I but in the time in the tredmill. I might not have the best technique
of cycling on the team. I would even say, I’m one of the worst cyclists when comes down solely on technique. But I definitely make it up in endurance.
After we arrived, I’ve was exhausted. I set up my sleepbag and pretty much passed out for an hour. Woke up, and by then a few people arrived. Killed some more time, and finally got ready for lunch, which was 1pm at this point.
We went to diner called DJ’s for lunch. Immediately, they all served us a double cheeseburger and fries. Maybe it was the exhaustion but these burgers were amazing. If you’re ever around Eureka, Nevada, I would definitely stop by.
After lunch, we came by and showered up. We had to walk to the local swimming pool to shower. Since we were there, and since I guess no one goes to the swimming pool, we took a little dip which did wonders. Came back and got ready for dinner. It kind of sucked that we had a late lunch and an early diner, but hey, beggers can’t be choosers.
Dinner was provided by the local Lion’s club. They gracefully served us spegetti and salad. I personally couldn’t even finish my plate, I was that full. I did save a little room for some “spice” cake, which was pretty good.
After dinner, a few of stopped at the store and picked a few necessities up, before heading back to lodging to call it an evening.
A couple of notes about Eureka. Eureka is actually one of the richest counties in Nevada (per capita) if not the richest. This is because it is a huge mining town. Until the late 1800’s, it was mainly a huge coal and copper mine. Then after the gold rush, it because the “town” in the desert. Conveniently, there is a closer city than Eureka to the mines. So most of the miners live in a town near the mines, which is in a different county. It sounds a little confusing, but basically, the town is filthy rich because of miners who don’t live there, and because of the mine which is 45 miles always from Eureka.
Because of all the money the town has, Eureka has a ridiculous school system. So far, this is the nicest gym I have stayed in, and its an elementary school gym…in the middle of nowhere. Its kind of crazy that all the kids from Austin, which is 70 miles away, take a school bus everyday to Eureka for schooling…not very economical but who am I to judge. The town still has its old-time look but there’s constant construction (a good sign for a wealthy town) and the roads are pretty nice.
I hear tomorrow is a pretty tough day as I pass over 4 summits. Fun.
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