Holy Headwind, Batman

Ride
time- 4:56
distance- 63.5mi

Yeah, this was pretty much the slowest metric century I've ever ridden. My excuse is that I've been lazy recently. And wind.
The Grey and I met up at his house and off we went. This adds some distance to the route I used to ride back when we lived in Wahiawa, but it means I get to see how The Grey and Diesel, who is training for Kona and is doing waaay bigger mileage than we are right now, got to me every week.
Kinda hilly. Sucks a little. I could see sucking more in my future as we come back.
I let training mileage slip for a variety of reasons after the Honu, but now I'm registered for the Honolulu Century at the end of next month and damn if I'm going to go into that totally unprepared. So cycling needs to come back up to three days a week, with big days on weekends. Real detailed century training plan. I know.
Anyway, we headed straight up the coast to Pupukea, one of the best-worst climbs I regularly do. It's not as long as some on the island, but there are sections of a lot of suck. Makes you strong. Especially because now we come back down and keep heading out. Gotta stack miles into the legs.
Out to the north-most point and around is an adventure in Holy Crap It's Windy. The Grey and I took turns pulling. There isn't a nicer sight than the guy you are riding with pulling around you to let you draft for a while. Tough winds. Looked forward to the turn-around.
Partially from the winds, partially from being out of shape, but I was bonking pretty good for a lot of the ride back. Just dragging. I kept trying to get it going, and it would for a while, but I never was able to hold what I felt was an acceptable pace. Looking at the data we were hovering around 45mph out and up around 18+ with the wind to our backs, but I was tired. We took more rest stops than we normally do. At least Hawaii is a great place for a breather.

I knew before we got to it that Pineapple was going to suck. And I was right. There is something about that climb. You can pace it all kinds of ways once your in shape, but when it's the first time in a while there is a lot of Happy Place Just Get Up It happening. The Grey blew me away going up and I didn't care. Couldn't have ridden much faster. Took another break in the shade of a bus stop at the top.
From there it isn't far home, but there is one climb that, while short, isn't much fun. Got it did, got to the Grey's house, and Second Favorite (Hawaii) Wife had food ready for us because she is awesome. Diesel showed up too because he smelled food.
Looking forward to getting distance-strong for the century. Not much feels better than 100 Mile Confidence on the bike.