I
rode a 100Km permanent on December 26th, the day after Christmas,
and then another on January First, New Year’s Day.
waiting for daylight |
OK,
so what you are thinking: the guy rode a couple rides where, is the story
here? The story is, I felt great after
the December effort, as though it was not that big a deal for me (as it should
be). And perhaps because I felt so good
on that ride I pushed myself more than usual, trying to be faster, to ride a
little harder, both for a better finish time and because I know that this kind
of effort is part of the pathway to getting stronger. And once I was done, I still felt great, not
just reveling in my accomplishment but actually feeling little or no effect
from the effort.
On
the January ride, less than a week later I felt just the opposite. From the
moment I woke up, until the start I just felt like I did not want to do this
ride, I wanted to go home, get in bed, pull the covers over my head and be the
bear in mid-winter. Even though I didn’t
feel up to the task I went ahead and rode, I know that riding against adversity
is part of the training needed to complete longer events; It’s mental; If you only ride when everything
says go, you will often not start, and rarely finish a longer event because in
these matters , there is inevitably a low spot, when that “what am I doing?”
mentality fills you head like a black cloud.
In fact, I even made an attempt to push myself yesterday (pitiful though
it may be), I figured with just 100K I would not likely do my body any damage.
There
are a couple factors not mentioned above that I think are major contributors to
the difference in these two rides. First
off, I was well rested for the December event.
I had been loafing for the most part for a few days before the ride, I
was staying up late, (a bad habit I have) but I was also sleeping in, a luxury
not normally afforded to a working man.
But I had a couple days off around Christmas and except for a few home
handyman projects and some writing, I was pretty lazy. I think the difference in temperature was a
factor. The difference between 69 and 76
degrees probably does not make a lot of difference to my performance on a bike,
however the difference between 26 and 33
degrees I believe affects me a lot more.
On New Year ’s Day, the temperature was somewhere around 27 or so when
we started. Not so cold that it immediately sears you through your multiple
layers of wool but cold enough that after not much riding your feet are really
cold. There was also a little more
tension on the January ride as well.
Even though we postponed our start from 8:00am to 9:00am it was still
icy on the roads and the stuff on the shoulders that looked like snow as
actually solidly frozen ice which would take you down if you were not vigilant
until about 1:00 pm (in the sunny stretches!) by which time it had softened up
sufficiently to be mush. I’m not sure but I think that slight, overriding
tension in the hands, arms, shoulders, (your butt muscles!), anticipating that
slip is sort of like a dripping faucet.
You don’t really notice it until the bill comes due, and at the end of
that ride I felt like my tension account was severely over drawn. I am sure that I have ridden 1ookm events
that have taken more out of me, but this little jaunt was a quick trip in the
way back machine. I was spent when we
rolled in to Starbux at the end.
I
am sure that the most significant factor was rolling out with a sleep
deficit. Mrs. Dr. C flew home from her
Christmas family visit on December 31st, with a planned arrival at
8:30pm. This may come as a surprise, but
there are no cross country flights in and out of Oakville AP so it is a couple
hours’ drive up to Seatac. Of course the
flight was delayed so it was after 10:00 pm before we were heading back down
the freeway. The roads were pretty good
even though it was dark, foggy and freezing.
I did a little slip and slide on the Maytown overpass which caused me to
back it off considerably. Long story
short, it was after midnight before I was in bed and with a planned 8:00am
start my feet were hitting the cold floor at 6:00am.
As
I was heading up Hiway 12 my faithful NPR station announced a highway jam up on
I-5 at about the Maytown exit; tow trucks, cop cars etc, which allowed me to
divert onto the well know local back roads.
Maytown, ... interesting. I arrived
early in Oly and as mentioned earlier I just did not feel like getting out of
the truck. It was still night dark and
icy out so I just laid the seat back in the truck and closed my eyes. Isn’t it funny how comfortable the cramped
seat of a smelly pickup truck can seem under the right (or wrong)
circumstances. Bone tired even before
the start, I knew I was in for a thrashing, and I had not even unload the
bike. I snoozed for 15 minutes, until it
was too cold to continue lying still in the truck.
I
unloaded the bike, fiddled with my gear enough to let the chill soak in and
then gingerly pedaled the couple of blocks up to Starbux. I was the first rider there; I got my coffee
and settled in as the morning unfolded before me. Eventually the other three riders showed up
and in discussing the conditions I made a decision that we would postpone the
start from 8:00 to 9:00. This would not
assure that would avoid all the ice, but it would certainly be one less hour
exposed to icy and frosty roads. We headed out in dense fog which persisted all
day; the
weak lemonade sun lacked the strength to burn through the dense cold blanket
that enveloped us.
I
rode fairly strong for most of the first half of the ride, but it was not easy
to do so, I was pushing myself. There is a stretch on Rainier road through Ft
Lewis that is always a pleasure, it’s forested with big second growth timber
and it was particularly lovely as a few errant beams of winter sun filtered through
the trees and fog.
Before arriving at
the first control I figured out that both my water bottles were frozen. When we go to the convenience store in
Rainier I bought water.
Rainier Road |
There
must have been 100 steelheaders along the last half mile stretch of the
Skookumchuck before the fish hatchery.
Perfect steelheading weather, rains abating, cold weather reducing the run
off, the rivers are dropping and the water is clearing up. I used to be one of those guys, a jerk on one
end of the line waiting for another jerk on the other end of the line. It made me think about the ‘polar bears’ out
at Boston Harbor. Riding a bike is not
the stupidest thing you can do in freezing cold weather. From Tenino to Case road was a challenge. I started to lose my steam, we were into a head
wind and this stretch is a real redneck highway (old 99) so lots of people
driving too fast and passing too close on frosty roads. Somewhere along here it occurred to me that I
was starting to bonk, so I fished an ancient Clif Bar out of my front bag and
struggled to get it open. I felt like a
groggy bear trying to get in to a well-sealed garbage can. Eventually I got the damned thing open and
started gnawing. Despite the high
concentration of fat and sugar, a frozen Clif Bar is surprisingly hard
masticate. I eventually choked it down,
fortunately my water bottles which were beginning to thaw so with a little
massaging I was able to get enough water that I didn’t choke to death.
Going
up Case road I continued the slow death march. I watched my average speed drop
from a high of 19.77kph (Woo Hoo!) down to just over 19kph. At that point I switched to total miles, less
concern for how fast I was(n’t) going and more for how much farther I had to
go. On this stretch we encountered a stiff head wind. I am sure it was a very light wind, but when
there is no gas in the tank little adversities grow like shadows in the late
afternoon. Put your head down and keep turning the pedals. We eventually did wind up back at Starbucks,
unlike the traditional SIR event this one ends with a downhill roll as opposed
to a climb. Thank you Lord for small
blessings. I was beat, the difference
between this and how I felt when I finished the December ride is hard to
describe.
I’m
planning another ride on Saturday, my January 200K, out to Cosmopolis. It appears that we will have a sizeable possè
for this one, and as I told the others yesterday though I can’t keep up with
most of them, more riders on the course always means better odds of all of us
finishing. That was proven on our December 200K when I was able to lend a spare
tire to another rider who might not otherwise have finished. You can bet I will be putting in some extra
sack time between now and Saturday morning.
Gotta' love those rides when someone else was clearly doing the pedaling.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "[o]ne thing I've come to understand is: a great ride does not necessarily make for a great blog post," but a struggle often does. Not always, but often.
Thanks for the read.
...Martin S