Second Event of Five

Well,

Friday we went up again to the neat little town of Pilot Mountain to be in place for an 8am start to the next organized event- "3 Mountain Madness" . This is an organized ride of what I had done on my own two weeks ago.....as you may recall the routes is about 76 miles and 9800 feet of climbing. Looking at the website in advance, I came to learn that about 45o riders had signed up. This is good in that "misery loves company" and "the more the merrier." However I had to guard against going out too fast to compensate for how long and how much climbing is involved in this ride. In hindsight, I probably could have shown a bit more restraint, however the weather was a bit better than when I rode this two weeks ago. I was looking forward to meeting a fellow Ride the Rockies rider, Dan Howe, who I had met online through a online web group. I did meet Dan at the top of Sauertown mountain. I also rode with Dan and his friend Jerry who will also be doing this ride and plan to see each other on the Ride the Rockies ride, so it is good to get acquainted now. The heat, as is is known to do in North Carolina, started to really cook in the afternoon hours and I was starting to really feel exhausted by the time it came for the last mountain -Pilot Mountain. By the time I got to the Ranger Station at Pilot Mountain, and with conferring with my  faithful SAG aka Marilyn, I took the route of a) Discretion is the better part of valor and b) I had just done the FULL route two weeks before and c)I knew that I would make it up, but my body told me I would never make it back to the finish. So....the 3 mountain metric became, this weekend, the 2 mountain metric, but checking the stats off of my Garmin Edge 305 GPS, I still had 72 miles and 7100 feet of climbing, so all in all not a bad days work. The other thing that I had staring me in the face was I was going to be riding Sunday also and wanted to have a bit of energy left to ride a ride of about 35 to 4o miles with my normal North Raleigh Ride Group (NRRG). 

Come Sunday and I showed up at Blue Jay County Park and hoped for a good show of fellow riders, but alas it was just two others besides myself. Joy Dempsey and Kurt Arehart were the only two to show. Maybe the weather scared them off a bit, but I HAD TO go in order to re-create the feeling of a hard effort, like we do on Ride the Rockies, followed by yet another day in the saddle as these events are riding riding riding and little to no time off to fully recover. Joy decided that, for her, the skies looked too threatening and it turned into just a ride for Kurt and myself. For me, this was great as that no matter what the weather, no matter what my body felt like I had to "get it in gear" and ride. It truly was a case of "mind over matter" and I really felt like even though we went a somewhat short distance (about 37 miles) it was great to be able to "break through" and see what can of perseverance I can drag out of this old body. Thanks to Joy for showing up, it was appreciated and I can understand not wanting to get potentially drenched if you have little to gain. Thanks SO MUCH to Kurt for hanging in. It was great spending a bit of quality time in the saddle. I hope that I showed you just a small smidgen of a new part of the "Old Weaver" loop that you may use in the future for variety. And Kurt the pins are FANTASTIC. Thanks for your fine effort.

I plan to start the packing process this week---that should be a real "doozie" however with more than a few days to do it should be OK. I also plan to change out my tires so I have "fresh " one to do the Ride the Rockies with, and have less chances of having a flat tire. I do have about 1360 miles of riding in since the acquisition of E2. I plan to finish the riding and start a serious "taper" this week in anticipation of the event as I leave a week from Wednesday. I may not write until I get back but will publish a lot of material on my return. SO LOOKING forward to Ride the Rockies but ......butterflies...I just have to tell my self "I've done the work, so now let's go out and ENJOY"

Just for "Practice" and for "Fun"...

Well,

Despite a less than favorable weather forecast, my wife and I pressed on to try the 3 Mountain Metric course as a "Practice" before the real thing on the 30th of this month. YEP---a good test...YEP--A phrase kept going through my brain the whole ride (especially up the last mountain) "What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger!!" 78 miles and 9800 feet of climbing. A real tester. Slopes of some portions over 10%!! Wet and overcast and humid weather to boot. The total time spent, including SAG stops, was over 8 hours! Started at 7am so the rain showers would not get me, but alas they did on the last mountain, Pilot Mountain. My back felt pretty good at the end- thanks to the continued use of the exercise ball and back exercises. My bike needs (and deserves) a bath! Onward and "upward"--the training continues!

23 days until I leave for Colorado, but who's counting??? More soon---"keep pedaling" and "keep riding" thats the ticket....I'll be fine!!!!

A week off not by choice -but....

Well, the weather this week did a number on me. Last weekend I had a pretty successful "Raven Rock Ramble" ride of 65 miles. I had great intentions ( you know what they say about the road to hell is paved with) of riding 3 to 4 shortish rides this week, but it showered or thunder stormed every day this week and alas no weekday rides. The end result is I had a bunch of "stored" energy to use up on the weekend. So, yesterdays plan------GO LONG!! I took a route that I had done a couple of times before up to the north. It really gets out into the country and is a great distance when you are trying to build some serious miles. The weather was VERY humid for this early in the season. I decided that I would try to beat the heat by starting out early. By 7:30 am I was on the road. I had a 17mph or above average for 2 hours 22 minutes and then it all kind of came apart. The heat punched up and the hills and time in the saddle started to wear me down. I am thinking in hindsight, maybe I was a bit "too" excited to get out and ride and kind of burned myself out too early in the ride, as opposed to evening out the effort throughout the whole ride. Lesson learned. The wind averaged 14 to 17 mph for the return in my face so not only was that a good "test" but it built strength and and gave character but still slowed my average pace considerably. 

One of the purposes of yesterdays rides was to test out some new equipment. I must say that this part of the ride was a pretty significant success. Early in the week I stopped into All Star Bikes and had my new rear "cassette" and derailleur and chain installed. This was a special order from All Star as the cassette is normally used on a Santana Tandem bike. The range on the cassette is from a 11 to a 34. That 34 is like a PIE PLATE. I was thinking to myself "Self- if that doesn't get up up the slopes of Colorado, you better not go at all." What a change! With that range on it makes going up STEEP hills not quite as much a insurmountable challenge. There is some minor shifting issues when I am down in the lowest cogs on the cassette, but I plan to work on that option.  The second thing that I tried was my new "fanny pack" . Pretty cool. I carried a Peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana in it to simulate carrying something back there and after about 15 miles, I forgot it was even there. This will come in handy when on either Ride the Rockies or Cycle Oregon when you start out with arm and leg warmers and potentially other gear and then as the day gets warmer, you have to "shed" to keep your body temperature at a reasonable level. This should work out just "dandy", as this is different in the previous times that I put a "trunk" on my bike and that kind of threw off the weight and balance of the bike, but it was an option to have "storage" on the bike.

So, today going to do a 30 mile ride  to stretch things out and see what a longish ride backed by a "shortie" feels like----Great Practice.!! 

One other significant finding came about this week. Last weekend's 65 miler and the previous weekend's 100 miles brought about an important fact---that is my BACK needs work. About 1/2 way through both rides my back started to significantly hurt. This is not for any reason other than I have been neglecting working on strengthening my abs and back. I found a great solution for that this week while it was raining. I stopped by Dicks Sporting Goods and purchased a "Workout Ball" and used it each day this week with exercises learned at the YMCA. With my back weakened by my surgery 4 years ago, and no strengthening , after about 2 1/2 hours on my bike, I get screaming pain in my lower back that can only be stopped by getting off the bike of doses of Advil (aka "workout candy"). Well, unless I did something about my abs and back, I would never make it through the entire 380 miles of Ride the Rockies. Solution-USE THE BALL or from one of my favorite movies "BE THE BALL, DANNY!" Result: My back felt tired after yesterday's 75 miles and little over 4 hours on the bike but not enough to even mandate using Advil to kick the pain!! Yahoo. Note to self----Keep using the ball and things will go well. 

Next on the agenda for preparation: A "practice" ride through the mountains on the "Three Mountain Metric" course on Saturday of next week: 74 miles 8600 feet of climbing--oh yeah, a pretty good tester!! But it will set me up well....I will report back after that.

First Event...of "Five at Fifty"

After last weekends 76 or so miles, I didn't know what to expect for this weekend but it was, after all, the first event on the "big" calendar. So Friday afternoon it was off for a 3 hour drive to Elizabeth City NC. Goal: Get away early and avoid the traffic. Mission accomplished! XM Radio tuned to the "80's" channel to pass the time and before we knew it we were at our destination. We got up early to get a great parking spot at the start of the ride, as is our usual custom and got ready to roll on out. My goal was to go out earlier than the "masses" to avoid the confusion at the mass start and beat a bit of the heat.Riders meeting at 7:15 and mass start at 7:30 was not for me. I readied myself and "snuck" out just after 7:00 for what was to be a LONG ride. As opposed to previous years, the wind was right in our faces as we rode away from Elizabeth City towards the turnaround point of Edenton. It one hour and 15 minutes for the "elite" riders to "catch" me and it was neat to have the roads all to myself. I was the 1st person past the first "Sag" stop and the 4th to enter the second sag stop. At this stop it was ABUNDANTLY apparent that the wind was going to be a HUGE problem! My average pace to this point in the previous 6 years that I have done this ride was around 19 to 20 mph. This year with a pretty steady good effort, keeping in mind that I was going to ride 100 miles instead of 63, I was averaging  about 15.5 mph. But the goal of finishing and keeping my promise to myself drove me on. After the sag stop, and while "slogging" along solo riding fighting the wind, many thoughts came to mind: "what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger" , "your stronger for sticking it out" and all the usual mind games that go on in your mind as you are battling fatigue, headwinds and all the "demons" that typically plague one on a 100 mile ride. One thing that I did find out is that my back started to "give out" about 3 and 1/2 hours into the ride-Note to self -keep Advil along for relief! Once I got to the sag stop at Edenton, I "begged" 3 Tylenol from one of the Sag Volunteers. Seemed to have done the trick! I also inquired of my fellow riders -Did it seem like the wind was in our face for 9/10ths of the journey to this point? The common response was YES, in fact, it was! So, applying "Cycle Logic" to the problem and psyching my self up I thought that with the wind at our backs for the remainder of the journey I could not only make it back to the finish but probably raise my average speed as well! 

What a difference a change in the direction in the wind plus a rest stop made! My average at the turn around point had fallen to 15.4 mph. The moment I started to head back to the finish my average speed started to creep up. It is hard not to when you look down at the GPS on the bike and your speed shows 19 to 2o mph! The sun and heat started cooking by 11:30 and the heat became the next obstacle. By the end of the ride the temperature was 84 degrees.  After the ride looking at the weather, the wind averaged around 14 to 15 mph  was , in fact, pretty much in our face the whole way out to the turn around point. I made it though!! End results: 100.8 miles, 6 hours 15 minutes "in the saddle" and average of 16.1 mph. GOOD EFFORT. Hot, yes that too. A shower and a bit of food at the end, and lots of liquid started the recovery process. Training for the Rockies continues at a good pace. 

Next Event is Three Mountain Metric in May and with a trial run earlier in the month and a new cassette in the back and new derailleur with a wider range of low gears, I should be good to go!! 

Longest Ride to Date after a week of ....

This weekend I did the longest ride so far of the season. I did NOT back it up with another ride on Sunday for one reason. I was just getting over a fairly consequential case of upper respiratory infection. I had it for over a week and "finally" went to the doctor on Friday. She said that the current "crop" is lasting about 7 to 10 days and I was at the point I would either get over it or it would turn into a "full blown" sinus infection. I got meds and am on my way to feeling much better, however and almost more important, I missed more than a few good days to train....but the thinking is that there is a reason for missing time....I just don't know it yet. Anyway, I went out long on Saturday, and thanks to my fellow North Raleigh Ride group riders (4 of us in all) , I was able to "survive" the 63ish miles to Oxford in fairly decent shape. Sincere thanks go to Tim Tripp for taking some pretty long pulls out front.... a Strong rider Mr. Tripp is!! I added the miles to the ride by riding over to Blue Jay Park to start the ride and by the time I got back to the house the "time in saddle" was a little over 4 hours 20 minutes and 75.37 miles. I was pretty well "spent" but EXTREMELY grateful that my conditioning was on track to be able to "pull this off." I am now looking very much forward to this weekend's ride at Elizabeth City NC . 100 miles should not hold as much foreboding as it would have had I not done a lengthy ride this weekend. AND....it (the Elizabeth City ride) is the FIRST event of FIVE AT FIFTY!!

500 Down and More to Go!

Well, over the weekend I made it to over 500 miles on the new bike E2! I must say it feels great. Each ride on this bike is better than the last and the "marriage" is going quite well, thank you very much!! I am figuring that, at a minimum, I will have at least 500 more miles before Ride the Rockies and of those two rides will be of my designated "Five at Fifty" rides- Tar Wheel Century at Elizabeth City, NC and Three Mountain Metric Ride in May. I should have a good handle on hill climbing with doing the Three Mountain ride twice, once on my own and once with a large group. I am definitely going with the large "mountain bike" gearing so I will have that on by the time the middle of May is here. I plan to do the hills and mountains of Colorado slow and steady and should be able to take anything given a bit of time and effort!! 

Two weeks since last post....and roughly 160 miles gone by....getting time in the saddle and getting used to the way E2 and I interact with each other.... decent yet not "huge" back to back this past weekend ...20 miles Saturday and 51 on Sunday....felt good on Monday (tired but recovering quickly) but the last set of hills on Sunday's ride were quite the challenge which spoke volumes to me. First of all it said ..."not there yet!" Second ,and by way of what will be needed equipment wise, I will need the change to a Mountain Bike gearing that the folks at All Star Bike Shop said that they could install for me to aid in my "quest." I feel this will not only aid physically but mentally as well. I feel that I even have a date planned to have this installed and that is the week BEFORE my practice run at the Three Mountain Metric course which, if the weather cooperates should take place on the 16th of May. 336 miles on E2 so far.