A little help from my friends

I did not blog about last month's 200K but I'm going to skip that and just blog about yesterday's 300K. I'm going to try something new for this ride report. Instead of a chronological listing of everything that happened, I going to describe different aspects aspects of the ride.

People

I wasn't sure how many people to expect. I knew that Bob would not be there because he rode the 300K two weeks ago. There ended up being 11 riders. There were two tandems. I rode for a while with Louis, Paul, George, Bard, and John (Barb and John were on a tandem). 
The pace was pretty fast and dropped off before we reached Pocahontas. Barb and John joined me. We stayed together until Lively Grove (mile 128) when I told them they could go on without me. They pulled most of the way. They did thank me for the miniscule amount of pulling that I did. They were great to ride with and I hope to see them again.

Weather

The weather was very nice. I brought tights and a jacket but never used them. The wind was out of the southwest so we had a tailwind for the first 25 miles. When we turned south we had a headwind for a good portion of the ride to Oakdale. I was hiding behind Barb and John on the tandem for most of this time. After we turned north we had a tailwind. Unfortunately the wind died down not too long after this. Even so, after the wind died I was averaging 16 mph which is not too bad.

Equipment

I used my new trunk bag on this ride and it worked just fine. I had plenty of room for the jacket and tights (which I didn't need but I was glad I had). It was much more convenient at stops than a backpack.
This was also the first long ride with my new shoes. I have the cleats set a little farther back than my old shoes and that seemed to work well. I did have a slight problem where I had not tighten the cleats enough and I had to adjust them at one of the stops. No problems after that.

Physical

I felt good for most of the ride. I wonder if I ate too much at one point because my stomach bothered me a little. There is a fine line between eating before you're hungry and eating after you're full. I'll keep an eye on that during the next ride.
I pushed myself a little harder to keep up with Barb and John. This was a strategic decision because I wanted to be able to draft them (and because I like riding with other people). This meant that I was slightly burnt out when I reached Lively Grove. I gave myself a nice long rest there (almost an hour) and was fully recovered by the time I hit the road again.

Psychological

I had good company for most of the ride and still felt good when I was riding be myself. I don't think I could hope for much better. I finished much sooner that I expected.

Stats

Time: 14:24
Rolling time: 11:56:58
Distance: 188.21
Average 15.7