96 miles, 96 degrees*

* Okay, so it was 95.93 miles and it was over 100 degrees by the time I finished, but it doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

The day began early. Very early. It's really hard to set the alarm for 6:15 on a weekend when it's not a race. But the temperatures were expected to reach over 100 and I had a long ride ahead of me. So it was either suffer early, or suffer late (at which point I'd probably be 30 miles from home). So the alarm went off and I snoozed. Fortunately I had factored that in. I finally dragged myself up, took the dogs out for a quick walk, and was on the rode by 7:10. I am not a great rider to begin with, but riding just out of bed is really not my thing. My legs just didn't feel as they had been, but that's what being tired does to you.

By 9am, I was almost at Carter Lake having just done the Wisconsin Rollers. Again. It does really suck that it's such a short section of road. My phone rang. I thought it was weird because everyone knew I had this really long ride and who the hell would otherwise be calling me so early on a weekend. I pulled over and got out my phone. Missed call from Adam (brother). Missed call from Rachel (sister-in-law). Missed call from Lavonne (stepmom). Shit! That feeling of dread hit my stomach like a brick. What the hell happened? And I'm 30+ miles from home. I listened to the first message from Adam, who sounded like my stomach felt. He didn't give me much information other than my dad needed emergency eye surgery and to call him. I won't say that it wasn't bad, because the whole situation did really suck, but I was imagining much worse. My dad has been dealing with eye issues for the last 5 months. He had just had his second surgery a few days beforehand, but I guess something went wrong. One of the options was to put a gas bubble in his eye (he had oil in it before). The problem with gas is that it has to stay at a certain pressure, which meant that he'd have to stay at the same altitude. The problem with that is that surgery was in Denver, elevation 5280 feet and my dad lives in Nederland, elevation 8000 feet. So of course he could stay with me or Adam, or both, if that was the better option. We got the logistics somewhat squared away, but surgery wasn't going to be until much later and so I was off again. Though not quite with the same oomph I was starting to get to before.

The rest of the ride went like this:
* Quick water stop at the bottom of the lake
* Up to the lake and over/around.
* Headed north towards Loveland into unchartered territories
* Started getting nervous about water supplies and not sure what was up ahead, so turned around a little early and headed back towards Carter.
* Did that awful little jog back to the water hose at the bottom of the lake. This was the second time on this painful stretch of road. At this point it was starting to get damn hot and I felt like I was frying.
* Not so quick refill this time.
* Back across the Wisconsin rollers
* Painful hot stretch towards 75th. I think I may have started hallucinating at this point.
* After what seemed like an eternity, I made it to Hygiene where I refilled and sat under the trees for at least 30 minutes. Only 20 miles to go.
* Stopped again at Tom Watson park, which is only like 8 miles away but I already felt like an almost dead man crawling through the desert. 12 miles to go.
* Slowly made my way over to Baseline.
* Even more slowly made the long climb up Baseline to 95th.
* Crossed the railroad tracks 1 mile from home and lost my water bottles. I wanted to cry and I stopped to go back and get them. I might need them for that last little stretch.
* Home sweet home.

After checking the current temperature (100.2), I promptly laid down on the living room floor directly under the ceiling fan and didn't move for 20 minutes. Forget the run I was supposed to do. Even if I had been able to, it just seemed like a really stupid idea to try and run in 100 degrees after having spent 6 hours frying on my bike. But being that I really couldn't get off of the floor, it wasn't much of an issue.

But I did it. I ran a very slow 13 miles the next morning (another morning setting the alarm before 7). My legs were a bit tired but I think I was way more exhausted from the heat. It just zapped everything from me. I'm not quite sure how I pulled it off, but I ended the weekend feeling a lot more prepared for IMMOO. Worse case scenario come Sept. 12...if it's 95 degrees on race day, I can get through it. It just might not be too pretty.