I'm still dieting, so the problem for me was striking the balance between finishing and not messing up the diet. I had 1200 kcal in / 300 kcal out on Wed, 1400 kcal in / 220 kcal out on Thu, 1550 kcal in / 0 kcal out on Fri, 380 kcal in the car driving to Palm Springs on Saturday morning, and 980 kcal (gels, drinks, etc) on the bike. This got me to the end, but the power was definitely pretty low. Took me 7:40 total time with average HR 131. I think that, because I lost too much time on the first hill and in the first SAG, the tailwind on Dillon had disappeared and I had to pedal all the way through. I see that lesper hit 41-42 mph in a few spots during the descent. My top speed was 36.5, and that was on aero bars.
For the first time I'm closely tracking calories before and after a long event like this. This will be interesting.
It felt like the organization was so-so. Giving away water in small bottles seemed wasteful. Once past the truck stop SAG, signage was either poorly visible or missing in places, and map on the provided flyer was hard to read. To add to the confusion, the route was different from last year. Many people took at least one wrong turn, and were coming and going in all directions. I followed the flow of cyclists more or less on auto-pilot and found myself in La Quinta, several miles off course. I had to use the GPS to find my way back. Never found one of the SAGs (mile 82), flyer said "Gerald Ford Elementary School", I got to the school but the SAG wasn't there. It was apparently moved to different spot a few miles before that, and no one bothered to correct the route sheet. Promised live music was seriously lacking. I don't recall hearing music at the first two stops (but it was too busy and noisy there for music anyway), and the band was already packing at the Lowe's stop by the time I got there. The stop was also out of gels and clif bloks and they only had sandwiches and bars.