Stock at Large means only one thing

It means there's going to be fresh cow shit on the road. And there was. Though there was an amusing bit where a cow with two calves was stopped in the middle of the westbound lane. The nearest driver had tried honking with no result. Then he got out and started waving his arms and yelling. I told him to calm down. That thing weighed at least 5 times what he did and was in the grip of maternal hormones. He would regret it if he annoyed the cow. It would move out of his way in a few minutes. Sooner if he asked nice. Meanwhile I'm riding slowly through this herd of cows, talking to them in a quiet calm voice. Cows like this. That same driver flipped me the bird when he passed me a few minutes later. Asshole.

All this took place on highway 66 near the end of my outbound ride. I went a ways past the seasonal gates, then turned around when my odometer clicked over 60 K. It took 3 hours to get to that point! I tried keeping my heart rate down, I really did. But something about a 20 Kph headwind made that very difficult. To say nothing of how steep it gets out there.

At turnaround I carefully ate a banana, riding WITH the wind. Don't anybody say I don't learn. That hill was steeper than I thought, and I ended going about 60 Kph while still eating. Plus the gravel on the shoulders made that just a bit tense making.

The ride back took 2:13. I abandoned the idea of keeping the heart rate down, and just rode at a comfortable pace, though I wasn't really putting any more effort into it. The faster ride is a function of mostly downhill and a tail wind. The last half hour I was getting pretty tired.

However, I don't really have any one thing that is hurting more than anything else. Everything hurts a bit. Everything in the wind was covered with bugs. Estela needs a bath. It was a perfect day for a ride, mostly cool, though the last hour the sun came out and it got hotter. I sprayed my tailbone with sunscreen, but I think I missed a slice. There's a red stripe.

120 K exactly, 5:13 stopwatch time. Bike time a little less because I stopped to pee three times. Maybe I shouldn't have had coffee before starting. My average heart rate ended up being 129 bpm, which is better than I thought it would be. This is my longest ride to date, both distance and time! And no, I didn't even think about going through the special needs cookie jar and heading out for another 60 K.