year 5. I was a late registrant for this one, as Lindsi thought she might ride, which would require me to stay home with the boys. Finally, just 6 days before the ride, we determined that I would go and I registered.
My plan was to do as I's done the past 3 years. Leave FW by 4, arrive by 6, ride, have a few beers, and return to FW. Alex agreed to ride with me to WF, which would make the trip better. We rolled at 4, and had an easy trip to WF.
As planned, we arrived at 6 with no challenges, and, quickly connected with Jan, Katherine, Lexy and Remi. We learned that Jan had mistakenly left his cycling shoes and helmet in his car that was in the shop. He had attempted to purchase all of the necessary items prior to ride morning, but, had purchased the wrong cleats. After some anxiety and help from a local bike shop that was set up on site, he was able to get he issue resolved. We headed towards the starting corral.
When our corral was released, we worked our way through the crowds and finally found some room to ride. We connected with Jason Hill early on, and had a good, fast pace going. Jan and Katherine fell back and, I think pulled over early. We would not see them again for a bit.
We made the 1st turn a little after 10 miles, and Lexy turned off for the 50 mile route, as that is what her training plan called for. So, it would be Alex, Jason, Remi and me for a bit. Jason and Remi were slightly ahead of us. By the 20 mile rest stop, Alex had fallen back a bit, and Jason and Remi were still ahead. I thought I would be solo the remainder of the day. I'd been pushing the pace, and had averaged over 20 mph for the 1st 20 miles. I rolled through the rest stop and continued. My pace slowed slightly, as we were hitting some headwinds (earlier than usual), but, I still felt good. Finally, at mile 30, I stopped at the rest stop for a quick pee break. I saw Jason and Remi, and visited with them briefly. As we were about to head back out, Katherine and Jan rolled up. This ended up being a 14 minute unplanned stop. Jason, Remi and I rolled out and began to push the pace again. While only moving at about 18.5 mph, we were still passing lots of cyclists. Surprisingly, Jason fell off the pace fairly quickly, leaving Remi and I to ride together. We kept the pace over 18 mph, rolled through the airfare base, and pushed to the finish.
Total time: 3:32:56 (17.5 mph). Moving Time: 3:19:04 (18.8 mph). This was, by far, my fastest HHH 100k. 19 minutes faster than a year ago, and 9 minutes faster than 2015. A good day in the saddle.
Somewhat surprisingly, I'm beginning to creep up the leaderboards in events like this too. My effort brought me in at 8 of 64 in my AG, 55 of 557 males, and, 63 of 815 overall.
The crew had a few beers and then headed to lunch before Alex and I headed back to FW. Good day.
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