Tour de Cure

I know it's been over a month since my last post & I should be servely beaten with a wet noodle for being so lazy. This past Sunday was the Tour de Cure ride near Atlanta for the American Diabetes Association. The weather was absolutely perfect for the ride. The temperature was a bit cool at the start of the ride, but it warmed up & was very comfortable the entire ride. There really wasn't much wind to speak of & the sun was out the entire ride. The ride started out great, I was with a group of about 10 riders & we had a nice paceline going for about the first 10 miles of the ride, then the route started to get a bit more hilly & then they decided to pick up the pace, not wanting to blow up so early in the ride, I decided to let them go & ride my own pace. I rode with another rider the rest of the ride. We had a great average speed going & it was looking good to break the 3 hour mark for the 100k ride. At a bit after the 2 hour mark into the ride, my back really started to give me problems, I kept having to stretch it out on the bike & make more rest stops to stretch than I really wanted to. I didn't break the 3 hour mark, but I did manage the 100k route in 3:07:08 with an average speed of 19.56 mph. I just have the feeling that if my back didn't hurt, I might have been able to break the 3 hour mark, but there is always next year to look forward to. We'll just have to see how things go.