Fort Davis to Marathon's Fun Descent

March 18, 2025 - 54 miles, 1200 ft elevation, Fort Davis, TX to Marathon, TX

I woke up on Tuesday and realized that I had almost no clean clothes left and it would be days before laundry (after forgetting to do laundry on my day off since I was working from 9 AM to 10 PM other than an hour for dinner).  So I rode my bike over to the empty 24-hour laundromat in the dark and got it started.

We had a relatively short day after our off day so we started late, at 10:15am.  I started with the least sore legs since the first day.  But it took a while for my legs to wake up.  We left town and within 20 minutes were climbing enough that I was breathing quickly and deeply.  Generally, my legs are tired and sore when we’re climbing but I’m not breathing deeply so this was just “waking up” for me after a day off.

Looking back toward Fort Davis, TX on the way to Marathon, TX

Light winds at the start quickly turned into variable winds, mostly cross.  We picked up an occasional tailwind for a few miles but faced choppy cross-winds for about 25 miles.  Then, we turned left at Alpine, TX and headed mostly east for a few miles with a helpful tailwind.  

We had a beautiful lunch and only had 18 miles to go.  Lots of cross wind for a few miles then got a downhill stretch for the last 14 miles.  The cross winds came here and there but mostly tailwinds as we tried to make up some time.  It was a really fun finish down into Marathon.  

The schedule has us for 53 Wednesday and 119 on Thursday.  But the forecast for Wednesday is nice tailwind but the forecast for Thursday is harsh headwind.  So we’ll switch up the schedule and see how far we can get on Wednesday, maybe 130???  Stay tuned!