wanted to do a crack of dawn ride today, so I pulled another all nighter... I got out an hour later than I was intending but it worked out for the best in a way. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I decided to do my little hill ride in reverse and do a Power Zone 3 ride. which was about 35 miles. 16 miles in I saw a rider going the opposite direction, I turned around to see how far he was riding and he said 50 miles, that he started a few miles back. I asked if he mind if I ride with him for a bit and Albert his name was happy for me to join him. So off we went, finishing the hill he was on. I let him set the pace and it was fast and faster than I was going at the time... Albert was fast and strong too we were heading into a headwind and he told me all his rides were solo as most of mine are. As we headed into the wind he looked like he wanted o pull so I tucked in behind him, when he slowed, I pulled around him to take my turn at pulling, keeping a close eye back on him I noticed he didn't tuck in behind me but stayed to my side taking the wind head on. He eventually pulled up even with me and we started to talk as we worked our way thru the headwind. I realized since he always rode solo, he wasn't used to riding in the draft. We did speak about riding in the draft to take advantage of it but it wasn't something he was used too. So we mostly rode side by side. I didn't realize that he loves pushing up hills as I noticed the speed would pick up and a few times when he made his jump I got caught sleeping and had to work super hard to get back up to him or on his wheel and we were really moving much faster than we were doing on the flats. This was OK as I was planning to do this on my ride but not as fast I was concentrating more on power output, I had to throw out concentrating on power and focus on maintain speed. 33 miles in on my ride distance I noticed that bike felt a little bouncy from the rear. I had to let Albert know I had a tire going flat before he took off on the next little hill we were about to hit. We pulled over to replace the tube, we checked the tire for any thing in it and nothing so I took the wheel off and removed the tube as I checked the tire for anything inside nothing but Albert found the leak. I installed a new tube. Inflated the tire and put wheel back on and put the tools away. We took advantage of the stop to refuel and hydrate. I needed the hydration as I was a little behind, I never caught up and could feel my legs on the edge of cramping, I also didn't take in enough nourishment during the ride, I took in 150 calories when Garmin said I should have eaten 700 calories, I didn't even bring that much. We pushed down Rte 70 to Red Lion Rd then down to Church Rd to Pemberton Rd, which I pulled Albert, I knew some where on this road I was turning off and he would about another20 solo miles and I 10.5 miles from where we departed. the last 8 miles were tough and I lost some speed. I must have slowed much more than I thought. I know my legs were feeling it but it was all good.