I decided to do this ride with some reservations. I hadn't really been training enough since the end of the year when I did El Tour de Tucson. In fact, my longest ride since November, 2008 was 70 miles and I did that last Sunday. I had done a few 50 milers but was never able to fully train for this one. Holidays, lingering flu, work, severe calve strain...yadda, yadda.
The calve strain was the real concern. It was a pretty nasty and painful injury.
Here's a photo of it almost healed up. At it's peak, the calve was nearly twice the normal size and the entire back of my leg was bruised. Friday morning, I got the tentative OK from my physical therapist that I have been seeing about it to ride, provided I didn't "hammer" and ride more for endurance, rather than speed.
I rode with one of my Tucson "C-Riders" teammates, Donna. She's a very strong cyclist. We had talked ahead of time and agreed to take it relatively easy as we both didn't feel we had trained enough.
The course started in Little Italy, which is essentially downtown San Diego and then proceed south and generally East, through Chula Vista, Bonita, Otay Mesa and then into the back country. We started out at the head of the race and kept up with the very speedy front group for about 5 miles. Average speed was up over 20mph. We decided to let them go on ahead when they started blowing through stop signs and lights. Not safe plus we didn't want to go that fast. It was fun while it lasted, though.
Part of the route was through the Olympic Training Center located near Otay Lake. It was a blast riding through the training facility where the Olympian's train.
After that we hit the backcountry where the terrain started getting pretty rocky and hilly. Hilly then turned to mountainy. Part of the course, Honey Spring Road, was timed as part of the King of the Mountain competition. This is a 7-mile stretch of road that proceeds upwards at grades between 4 and 8% grade. Each of the riders was timed up the climb and a special jersey and medal would be given to the fastest climber in each category. Well, I was nowhere in the running for that. In fact, the heat was so bad (90+ deg) and there was so little shade that I stopped about 5 times to cool down on the climb. Donna was feeling much stronger and could have gone on ahead but kindly stayed with me. It was a brutal climb and a very disturbing sight to see riders strewn across the course, out of water, overheated and with some puking. I stayed with my game plan and was probably overcautious but finally made it up the hill and was embarrassingly near the bottom time for the field. Lot's of riders didn't even finish the climb and were hauled off the course by the support vans.
Honey Springs Hell
We get to the top of the hill, feeling pretty beat up and we are only 41 miles into the ride with 4300 feet of climbing already. Top the hill, the aid station is nearly out of water and people are looking really sad and tired. We take a short rest, fill up on bananas, pretzels, water and then move on. The good news is that the ride was advertised as 4800 feet of climbing. The next 60 miles should be cake, right? Umm....No. Someone needs to get their altimeter checked. After a beautiful fast downhill (46 mph!) we turn the bend to stare at a huge hill up ahead. Put the head down and pound it out.
Christine agreed to meet us at mile 59 to give us a little personal support so I had that as a short term goal. I estimated that we would be there between 12 and 12:30. We roll into the aid station to meet Christine over an hour behind schedule. The scene is even worse there, with many of the exhausted riders laying in the grass and phoning for rides home. We had been out of cell phone range for hours and this was their first opportunity to use their phones.
Christine meet us with open arms with a SUV full of goodies. First off was the camp chair in the shade of the car, then there was roasted chicken sandwiches, peeled bananas and oranges, gatorade and a beautiful 20-lb bag of ice.
Who has the better cleavage?
Kicked off the shoes, doffed the extra clothing, base layer, arm warmers from the morning and chowed down.
After about 20 minutes of resting in the shade, we're back on the road. By this time we had been on our bikes for over 7 hours with another 4o miles to go. We set a new goal to finish within an absolute maximum of 10 hours, which is very slow century time for us.
On the flats, we pace-line like pro's and get the average speed up to the low 20's MPH and make up lots of time. More climbing, followed by more climbing and we are in Alpine after passing through parts of Cleveland National Forest. We hit the last aid station at mile 85 for a pee pee break and leave quickly. The last few miles were through Spring Valley back into downtown. We join up with a group of 5 other riders going roughly the same pace as us to share in the work. We finally roll into the finish after nearly 9-1/2 hours in the saddle.
Total climbing for the day was over 6800 feet! That is by far the most I have ever done in a day. I think the previous best was 4500ish.
We celebrate with a burger and beer at the Princess Pub and then go home. Shower and try to keep my eyes open. Fail. I'm asleep on the couch by 7:30pm.
Brutal ride. Definitely the hardest Century I've ever done. I stayed with my plan, took it easy, finished safely, completed the event and lived to tell about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment