Battling Headwinds and Saddle Soreness to Gila Bend

March 5, 2025 - 88 miles, 1250 ft elevation, Welton AZ to Gila Bend AZ 

Woke up naturally at 6 AM MT after losing the hour crossing into AZ.  Not used to waking up naturally this early.  Feeling pretty good after 100 miles, not as sore as I thought.  Forgot sunscreen on some spots on Day 3 so have a few burned spots like my nose and just above the knees, but no big deal.

Started the day with a nice pace line with a mild headwind.  Well, the headwind lasted all day but fortunately wasn’t that strong.  

Didn’t change direction very much all day!!!

What do you do when you are riding all that time?  Good question.  Sometimes you count train cars, they sure are long.  227 plus 5 locomotives the first time, then 133 the second time.  Lots of trains taking storage containers back to the ports.

133 Train Cars coming by

Stayed together with Norman, Martin, and Doug and skipped the first water stop and grouped up with Steve and Andy after water stop until lunch.  Unlike Day 3, was starting to feel it after lunch.  Strava says I was at 81% intensity vs 65% yesterday so I guess the headwind made us work harder.

Day 4 brought pretty wicked saddle soreness.  Not chaffing, tons of Assos Saddle Cream takes care of that.  Tissue is just annoyed at the pressure.  Need to find an alternative seat or this is going to get worse.