I found it hard. I was feeling strong all the way to Colwyn Bay, after leaving Forte's Restaurant and realised I had a puncture, unfortunately I couldn't find the cause and I should have sent longer looking as new tube punctured as well. Found the culprit this time, it took a while, tiny bit of glass. New tube and on my way but by this point the weather was very very wet, one stop to top up air in the tyre, I was hoping it wasn't another puncture and as it turns out it stayed up for the rest of the ride so I was happy. My memories of the way to Holyhead were all of the grim weather, getting to memsec he tried to ply me with rice pudding but I was keen for proper food and returned to the pub I had passed with a number of bikes outside. Here I had the poshest meal I have ever had on the Audax and patched my tubes, thanks to another rider lending me a proper puncture repair kit, as silly me only had park patches which didn't stick in the damp.
Here I joined up with Louise for the night section and we were both so happy that the rain stopped as we left, I had treated myself to a new set of gloves! We soon were joined by Steve and the three of us had a very enjoyable ride through the night to Abergele, McDonalds being a very welcome sight. Leaving there was hard, all my layers on and feeling cold not that it took long to warm up. On this section I started to fall asleep on my bike, my eyes struggling to stay open and was a bit wandering on the road. Steve and Louise were lovely and stayed with me, I was eyeing up grass verges for a nap. I had perked up by Chester Services which seemed to have lots of tired cyclists sprawled all over it. Another feed and it felt good to have less than 60k to go. I was surprised one again to go through a sleepy phase and was glad when that passed.
We finished at 9:30am, my first 400k completed. I'm already thinking about a 600k need to work on the staying awake though.
