Day 34

Today was the toughest day of bicycle riding that I've ever experienced.  Last night's weather was beyond anything that I've seen before, and I did it from a tent.

From 11 pm to 3 pm we received a steady barrage of lightning and thunder.  There was little separation between the flash and the boom and it seemed like it was happening every 10 to 15 seconds.  On top of that, the rain on my tent sounded like it was being sprayed by a hose.

The campground started to flood.  My tent was pitched on higher ground, but a couple of other riders got soaked.  I got up at 3:30 am and helped another rider pull his tent out of 6 inches of water.  He literally appeared to be in a state of shock and was a little disoriented.  He was standing in the rain in his underwear and looked at me and said, "Mark, what do I do".  I got his stuff up to high ground and then woke up one of the ride coordinators who had a big enough tent to take him in.  I went back to bed to salvage what sleep I could.  We were riding 106 miles today and I'd had maybe 2 hours of sleep.

The morning's ride was through flooded Illinois countryside.  We traversed water over the roadway in 8 locations, sometimes up to my shoes.  I saw corn and soybean fields under water and at least one farmhouse that was completely flooded.  We rode in larger groups than usual because of the adverse weather conditions. 

I paced with the younger riders all day just just because I didn't want to fall back.  Again, you'll have to take my word about the flooding, because if I stopped to snap a picture I would have never caught back up.  I was comfortable in the pack even if the pace was quicker than my normal one.  We covered the 106 miles at an average pace of 15.9 mph.  I was so tapped out after the ride that I could barely set up my tent.  I went to bed at 8 pm.