The Showdown

Went out this morning and did the Ironman loop. 56 miles. I pushed pretty hard and had a great ride. Lots of people out today.

A few miles in, I ran into the Janesville Velo Club on one of their epic rides, so I rode with them for a while until they turned around to head back to Janesville. These guys really rack up the miles. They do a century every Saturday. Unfortunately, Jens is sick today so he wasn't with the group.

Then I was on my own, so I focused on my power output. I tried to keep my watts above 200, which is tough...and tiring. But I was doing it, for the most part, and my average speed was pretty decent for riding a road bike without aero bars. About 20 miles into the ride, I ran into an unexpected hazard: a llama in the road. It was just wandering around until it spotted me. Then it stopped and stared me down. I stopped and stared it down.

There we were in the middle of the road giving each other the stink eye. A good old fashioned showdown. Two mean, dusty cowboys about to gun each other down in front of the saloon at high noon. He wasn't about to back down, and I was...well I was a little scared. I kept asking myself: are llamas mean? What does he want? Are llamas mean?

Finally, as the tension was reaching a boiling point, a car came. Whew. The llama will run home and I will be saved the humiliation of being attacked by a llama. What would the guys at work say? Dennis would surely have some comments. But the llama didn't retreat. It ran straight at me. Not wanting to look like a coward in front of the driver of the car, I got back on my bike and went straight for him. It was on. Like two muscle cars in a high stakes game of chicken, we were throwing it all on the line. This was the moment of truth.

And the truth is, the llamas fear me. I won that game of chicken and have lived to fight another day. But I'm sure I haven't seen the last of that ferocious llama. We'll do battle again some day. That I know.




The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful . I hooked up with a dude from California and some woman who rode with us but wouldn't talk to us. Weird. She sure could climb though. Tore both of us to shreds on the hills. It was a little embarrassing, but I'm not going to let it bother me since I'm not 100% sure that was a woman.

Stats:
Time: 3:05:34
Distance: 56.33 miles
Average Speed: 18.3 mph
Max Speed: 43.8 mph
Average Watts: 194
Max Watts: 841
Work: 2168 kJ
Ave HR: 143
Max HR: 173
Ave Cadence: 84 rpm
Climbing: 2550 ft.
Calories: 3280