They say that slow and steady wins the race. I should have known better as this little fella past me!!
I tell you ... your mind can play tricks on you when you have spent almost three hours out on the road under a hot hot sun. You start to wonder if you're sweating enough ... if your body is overheating ... if your going into the early signs of sun-stroke ... if that sick feeling is because of the sun and the effort you've been putting in, or nothing more than the muffin you half eat at your last stop when you probably shouldn't have taken food on board so quickly. ... And sometimes you wonder if that bit of garbage on the road a hundred yards ahead is moving only to realize that when you get close it isn't garbage, it isn't road kill, it isn't a mouse pecking for food ... it's a dammed tortoise trying to make it from the shrubs one side of what to the tortoise is a baking hot asphalt desert, to the shrubs on the other side.
Why did the tortoise cross the road? Well, I didn't get an answer when I turned my bike around to take a photo and asked him, but he wasn't getting anywhere quickly, must have been feeling the heat worse than me though I dare say each of us could sympathize with the other as we looked into one anthers eyes ... me asking him if he figured he could make it alive before the next car steamed over the horizon, and him wondering if I was the latest pray out to kill him.
I had done a good 47 miles or so by the time I ran into him and all of it in over 30°C heat. It topped out at 34°C. I had gone off at a good clip, feeling good about myself, at pace I knew I could keep up without factoring in the heat. I stopped after 15 miles to buy myself a cold bottle of water because I had arrived up from the city without my water bottle and so started the day with a basic plastic bottle of water bought from a local shop. It was warm water within ten minutes of beginning and the bottle I bought at 15 miles was hot within five minutes of setting off again as the heat went up. The long I rode the more I longed for a stretch where the tree line came close to the edge of the road to provide me with some well needed shade for a few hundred meters. Such moments were very few and far between.
I stopped again at about 38 miles to get out of the sun. I sat in a cafe and choked down an ice cold water, an orange juice, and half a chocolate-chip muffin. I texted my wife to tell her I'd be home within the hour and then I contemplated phoning her to come in the car and give me a ride home. I didn't wanna have to go back into that sun and I was feeling weak. An average speed of 18.6mph would become 18.1mph over the next 15 miles as I struggled on. Why didn't I follow through and just call for the ride? Why didn't I spare my skin the beating of the sun? Well, I reached into my back pocket to pay for my snack and pulled out my car keys. Ahh well, it saved me having to put my tail between my legs!
After a quick picture or two, and slowing down an on coming car so it could swerve the little reptile, I got on my way. The tortoise wasn't moving fast as it was -- it was why I thought it was road kill at first from a distance until it did shift slightly -- and he had come to a standstill when he seen me approach, and I figured the sooner I got going, the sooner he would get moving off that road and into some form of safety. I've no idea if he did, nor to I have any idea how long it took him; but if he represented the reptilian version of me on the bike ... burning up, getting slower and gasping for shade and water ... then he will have just made it ... only just ... and spent the rest of the afternoon out of the sun, hydrating himself, packing in a decent dinner and later, enjoying two cold beers. I hope he did.
Ride details:
