Day 3 (Henrik)

Today was supposed to be the recovery day, with no major climbs and a relatively short total riding distance. Still, we spent about 6 and a half hours on the bike, and I was pretty worn down the first few hours. We started riding with Paul the first half hour, just like yesterday. The first half hour of riding is absolutely not comfortable in any way. The legs are stiff, and the saddle does not feel nice at all... After a while, you get used to the feeling, and everything is pretty much normal. However, I was surprised to see that I did not have much power left in my legs the first few hours. I tried to push to go faster, but neither the heart rate or speed increased. I simply needed more energy, and at the stop at Doughton Park, 4 hours into the ride, I ate as much food as I could. After that, everything became normal again.
I am very happy to have Susan and Paul support us - without the support, this ride would have been close to impossible.

The best part of today's ride was just before crossing the Virginia/North Carolina state line, since that is the only level section of the Parkway we have seen so far. It is about 15 km of nice (normal) bike riding. Everything else is either uphill or downhill.

Once finished for the day, it felt nice to have completed over half the distance of the full ride, and now we have only two days of riding left. We are both in pretty good shape, and the finish line is getting closer and closer.

The stats of today (in metric units for the european readers):
Distance: 139km
Total time: (including breaks): 6h27m
Climbing: 2310m
Average Speed: 23.9km/h
Max Speed: 65.3km/h
Average heart rate: 124bpm
Animals on the road: 1 snake, 1 turtle, and one deer

/Henrik