Come a hot Sunday

It is 11.45pm on a sunday.
I sit here with a beer and a jar of green olives, swig of one, fork full of another. The taste dancing a minuet.
This morning Mike rang at 7.15. It was about an hour too early, and the cold I have been battling for the last few days was hanging heavy on me.
My kid gave it to me for Christmas. Last time I show her any parental affection...the tart.
I croak down the phone, our conversations at this time of the morning are nothing, if not brief.
"see you at 8" he says.
"croak" says I.
I shower,find my gear, load 2 water bottles, stuff one of those digusting gels into my pocket, cell, money...pump my back tyre, the front doesn't need it.
Then blow my nose, and it starts to bleed, and won't stop. 15 minutes later I'm at Mikes and he has gone. Still leaking blood I set off after him. After 7 miles of riding I see him at the top of Glen Massey hill when I am at the bottom, but by the time I reach the turnoff at 10 miles, despite doing 28m.p.h. he has gone, so I decide to carry on alone.
It is pleasant enough up through the valleys, but as the morning progresses it gets hot, and feels as if the residual snot in my head is starting to boil.
The hills come in waves, 5,10,15,20...I don't recover from the last before the next comes crashing over me.
I pull my zip up on the downhills so I don't get chilled, and down on the uphills so that I do.
After 40 miles the first of the three roads that head back off the hills comes up to tempt me. I ignore them all, which tests my resolve.
The Pukekawa school is half way up a hill, and 7 miles from lunch,I have one gulp of water left and I contemplate trying to make my destination with what I have left... I stop, seven miles is 21 minutes and I decide that that is too long.
Mercer is perched with its toes in the Waikato River, it is, and always has been, a posting stop, for horses, for trains and now for trucks. It is blessed by a shop called 'Pokeno Bacon' which for the smell alone is worth the 55 mile bike.
I chow down on Pepsi, tea, and Pokeno Bacon sammies.
30 minutes later I am back on the bike. They have just resealed the road, and for 15 miles I am rattling and dancing like a marionette on a washer board. The headwind is not brutal, but is a trial nevertheless, and it is a relief to cross back over the river onto the old smooth road with 20 miles to go.
A tick over 5 hours and I am back, just under 90 miles....and best of all I didn't need to eat the gel.
I feel pretty good, and will do it again on Wednesday.