In what I hope won't become a recurring theme, today could be described as a tough tough day. Started out OK, as you can see, me and my limey white legs took a dip in the Pacific Ocean. From there we followed a great cycle track which followed the Santa Anna river. Santa Anna isn't really a river, it's a storm ditch like you would see in Grease or Terminator 2, but it got us out of LA without mixing with the traffic.First SAG stop (support and gear) was at 31 miles. Here Barbara gave us bananas, biscuits, energy bars, sun screen, anything we needed for a day on the road. Things were going fine until about 40 miles when the winds and the temperature got up. We were cycling into a 30? miles an hour head wind in about 100 degree heat. Even that was reasonably OK until we got to the hills. 1100 feet of climbing later and I was done in. Started feeling sick, but they rescued me with lots of fluids and salt crackers. Fortunately wind changed direction and the last 20 miles we did in about an hour. Got in at 5, totally totally exhausted. Thanks to the guys who did the leading today and let me sit in their slipstream. However fared better than some, who got in after 6 or arrived in the van.
On the plus side, saw some spectacular scenery and lots of wind farms, can't think why they build them around here.
Tomorrow it's 130 miles but apparently not so hilly and hopefully the wind will be better. I'm going to take their advice and not do anything stupid, will ride in the van if necessary. Must have drunk over 10 litres of fluid today. Problem with getting in so late is that there's precious little time for recovery. Anyway, we'll see.
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