Notes
EHCT Day 2 (route doing Eagle's nest, condors, nest, & sparrows nest)
warm and very humid ride. rode about 75% effort level most of the day. I tried to focus on keeping my heel down. i wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be at the front all day, or not. It seemed like i was getting conflicting directions. Early on in the ride, it seemed like the group was pushing harder up the hills than I normally do & i was told to go to harder gear and stay up. Later in the ride, going the same effort seemed to result in dropping people and I'd get in trouble for going off the front.
Since it seems to normally be ok for me to go a little harder on the bigger hills, I did push a little on the "nests" but tried to leave 2 steps in speed possible. On Condor's nest when I was already ahead of the group, a girl passed me pretty fast.. I figured I had at least 3, maybe 4 steps up in speed to catch her, so did and passed her by the top. I then realized there were 2 more climbs, so figured I was obliged to keep going for the next two, as well before sitting up to wait for the group.
I planned on using mainly gatorade and adding some EFS gel, but a lot of the aid stations didn't have gatorade or else it was very watered down. I tried to eat bananas & cookies at stops to get calories, but i think not getting the salt from that, plus the bad humidity left me low on electrolytes. my left quad and right calf started cramping for the last 15 miles, or so.