BRUTAL!! Wind Advisories Rode downtown to catch bus to CNC breakfast ride. Caught bus, but it was 10 minutes late causing me to be late to ride anyways!! I almost caught up with group, but fighting terrible headwinds even at 8am that wasn't going to happen. I ended up taking a short cut to breakfast and thought I'll try to finish second half MAYBE. I should have stayed in bed.
I decided to ride to Cicero which ended up being a VERY UNWISE decision. I'd hoped the north wind would give me a nice tailwind home, but unfortunately the winds changed on me, by the time I reached Cicero, the winds had changed to WNW and were steady at 20+mph and building gusts of 30+ to 40+mph!!!! I had to ride back with these as HEADWINDS and CROSSWINDS!! At more than one point, I was trying to go up slight grades and barely getting over 3mph or so. It took all I had to get back to the park and nearly 3 hours of riding to get the distance! I hurt so bad and I'd started to bonk, all I wanted to do was pull to the side, put the bike down and cry. I didn't of course, but I got to the point I was afraid that I would if I had to go much further in those brutal headwinds. My mind was in a fog and I was concerned that I'd wreck, I was glad that I was in a lower traffic area for the most part.
I made my way back finally to the MONON and a water fountain. I believe I was dehydrated as well since I'd only brought one water bottle with me today and I was concentrating hard on not getting blown over by the winds and not drinking. I sat and rested out of the winds and refilled my water bottle. While I sat, I grabbed a gu gel and washed it down with another good drink of water. I finally started back down the MONON glad that most of my trip would be out of the winds I'd hoped and a good portion downhill. My legs were rubber and my mind was trying hard to recover as well. I make my way through yet ANOTHER detour on the MONON and decide I'm going to try to finish off for a metric since I was close to it. I get my metric and fight my way to College Ave to try to catch the bus to town, my legs were pretty well spent for now and I needed a break and didn't want to take another hour or more to get to town riding.
I got downtown and stopped for a while at The Bike Line downtown resting a bit more while I visited Jimmy and the crew before making my way to my final bus home. I finished a very hard earned last metric for October.