Day 4: Tonopah, NV to Rachel, NV
Strava Link: Petoji Day 4
After a difficult first 3 days, Day 4 was a short one at 109 miles without much climbing. I expected an easy recovery day on Day 4. I was wrong.
The day started out well enough. I had some extra time in the morning to relax a little bit, which I really hadn't had since the evening of Day 1. I headed east out of Tonopah on 6, then turned onto 375 towards Rachel. Both roads were great- low traffic with beautiful desert scenery. Nevada at its finest.
I covered the first 60 miles with no problems. Then NV 375 turned south and the headwinds began. The wind wasn't so bad at first, but it picked up pretty quickly and I was struggling to ride 12 mph on the flat sections. As the road turned slightly uphill I was struggling to maintain 10 mph. 375 is a long, straight road. You can look miles and miles ahead and all you will see is the empty road ahead disappearing towards the mountains in the distance. It makes for wonderful scenery. However, when the wind is blowing in your face at more than 20 mph it makes you feel like you're moving in slow motion.
I live in Reno. We get plenty of windy days like this. Riding into the wind is less than fun, but in the back of your mind you know you'll change direction eventually and get a sweet tailwind. Day 4 was different. There would be no tailwind. I was going to have to ride 50 miles into the wind with no reward at the end. It turned a short, "easy" day into a long struggle.
The wind can really mess with your mind. It seems like it would be simple to just accept the fact that you're going to ride slower for the same amount of effort, but it's not. There's just something annoying about it. There's the slow speed, the dust blowing in your face, and the never-ending noise. Personally, I find myself thinking too much about what should have been.
"Day 4 should have been an easy day." That was the big one. I had a difficult first 3 days and Day 5 was a long one at 178 miles. I really wanted that easy day in between. On top of that, I was doubting my physical condition. Day 1 was a good day, but I made my mistake on Day 2 and didn't feel like I was riding up to my potential on Day 3. What about Day 4? Obviously I was slow, but was it me or was it the wind? I don't have a power meter, so there was no way to know for sure.
I decided it was me, and that's when doubt started to creep in. Day 4 (109 miles) ended up taking 8 hours of ride time and 9 hours of total time, and I felt way worse than I normally would at the end of this long of a ride. How was I going to finish 178 miles on Day 5? Even if I finished Day 5, how much would it take out of me and how could I finish the rest of Petoji? Why was I feeling worse than I felt in training and how could I train so hard all year and ride so poorly now? Everything seemed to be falling apart. I waited over 10 years for this and it was supposed to be fun. Was 130 miles per day too ambitious? What would I do if I had to quit? How could I live with that?
I tried to push the long-term questions out of my mind. One of the things I learned from Everesting is that if you push through the difficult moments and just focus on doing one more climb, sometimes that next climb is a little bit better and you can start to build some momentum. I turned my focus to Day 5. If I could somehow finish Day 5, then maybe I would be OK. I had my doubts, but I wasn't going to focus on the whole of Petoji. It was all about Day 5. Could I finish Day 5 or not?
