June Hundy in the books

With no partners to take on this month's hundy, I wasn't really looking forward to it. However, I have plans to attempt one while on vacation in Montana over the 4th of July weekend. Looking ahead, I'll need two weeks to recover before then, thus I had to ride this weekend.

My route was to head south of Booneville, then towards DeSoto and up to Redfield. The first 30-35miles are the same as last month's hundy. After that it was all new roads, heading up to Panora, then east and south to Adel and familiar territory again. My original plans were to ride around Lake Panorama, but I had already taken an unplanned detour down south and didn't think I was going to need the additional miles.

The morning started off uneventful. I was concentrating on eating better this time. A Clif Bar for breakfast and then Hammer Gel every 30mins, a Balance bar at 1hr in, and all seemed to working well. Even though I had a slight headwind, I hit 33miles in 2.5 hours. At that time, I decided to try for a new personal best.

Between Redfield and Panora was some really scenic country. The only bad thing was that the roads had been freshly graded, it was to stay this way for the next 50 miles.

I came around a bend and saw this farm. A good looking place that the owner obviously cared about. Just after snapping the photo, I realized it was a hog farm (and a big one). The next 5 minutes had me breathing through my mouth and not my nose. :)
Slightly further down the road was the town of Mindon (or Lyndon). This picture is of the downtown. The neat thing about these gravel rides is that you find these throughout the state. They were probably the center of the farming community in the old days, now there are a few old and empty buildings.
Panora was at the 55mile mark. I had been working on keeping my average speed above 13mph and made that goal. Given the headwind and poor gravel, it was work to accomplish that. I stayed away from the pizza this time and went for cheese and crackers (protein, fat and carbs). It seemed to be a good decision.
On the road again, I now had a tailwind. I added a few sections north to get more miles. I knew that it would be close to the 100 mark by the time I got home. In fact, I added another loop south of Waukee and should have went farther. After taking the long way into the neighborhood, I hit 100 exactly and hit a new personal best. 100 miles in 7:14 (ride time) and 7:44 (overall time). I even had more climbing this time out (5000ft).
I felt really good this time out. I need some new gloves and shorts and need to find out why my feet hurt so bad at hour 5 (my feet seem to be swelling).

I ran into a former co-worker around Waukee. Jason N. had ridden to Redfield and back. He said that he saw others riding gravel in that area. Anyone else go out later in the day?

Here are the ride stats:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6046777