Cycling
Hey, or rather… Hay
Hello all. I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. The little bar graph in the upper right says I haven’t posted in over 30 days. That’s quite a hiatus. Time to start again.
Taken on a recent ride. Near Mechanicville, NY.
24 Hour North American Championship
Last Saturday (and Sunday) was the 24 hour race. I rode this event last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. That event turned me onto the really long events. Endurance. This is the stuff I like.
Last year
The first hundred miles sucked. I don’t know what went wrong. It was slow and I couldn’t find my groove. After the 3rd lap, I took a long break, ate a big lunch, reflected, then headed back out refreshed about 20 minutes later. The 2nd and 3rd hundred were both great after that.
Stomach issues? Yes. Couldn’t figure it out last year. Didn’t have them on the brevets this spring–where two of the events were comparable to the 24. But on the 24 last year, I was mildly nauseous for several hours but pushed through and eventually finished strong.
Total mileage last year: 351.
This year
First hundred rocked! Set PR for best solo century at 5 hours 33 minutes. Second hundred was very good as well. Third hundred… well, that’s when the stomach issues crept in again. Someone suggested that the ibuprofen I took may have been the culprit. Good idea. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. That’s the common item between last year and this year, and only present in small doses on the brevet rides.
I would have loved to have been able to compete without that handicap. The final hundred was a progressively greater and greater battle with nausea. Eventually I had to stop after lap 10. This meant I’d have fewer miles than last year where I completed 11 laps. Because of the nausea I didn’t eat much–just the barest minimum to keep from bonking. And even then it probably wasn’t enough. Solid food went the way of the dodo around 2 or 3am.
Now I don’t mean to harp on the stomach thing. While it was an overwhelming part of the event, most of everything else was great. The weather proved ok in spite of threatening thunderstorms. It DID rain at night, but it wasn’t too too bad. The organization was great. And the pre-ride dinner and rules review was nice. John always puts on a good cycling event.
North American Championships?
Yeah, um, apparently I’m worthy of placing in the 24 hour championships. I ranked 4th in my age group (under 50) and 9th overall. This was a very positive outcome of the day–helps to balance my mild feelings of disappointment at the nauseous finish. Brian said I should banish the word disappointment from any description I make of the event.
My Crew
Speaking of which… Brian was an outstanding crew for me during the night. I never even asked anyone to help me this year. I was just going to ride solo, since I’ve done a 24 hour before and ridden the 600km in 36 hours, and am feeling more and more confident about night riding. But out come Brian and Jenn to encourage and help me. They showed up mid afternoon, did a lap by bike looking for me. Then when we caught up with each other, did a lap together. No drafting mind you. Strickly verboten! It was great to have the company for a lap. They peeled off after that, and brought chinese food back for dinner–after I did another lap.
After dinner, I did another two laps (I think it was two), then Brian shows up and drives behind me for the rest of the night. Jenn had a prior commitment elsewhere. So Brian sticks it out throughout the night. Driving along at between 15 mph and 18 mph. Sooo boring, I can only imagine. At least I’m riding, pedalling, keeping my blood flowing… all things helping me to stay awake. He, on the other hand, is in a nice warm, dry car on a comfortable plush seat.
Halfway though my tenth lap, at the northern checkpoint, I had to stop and let the nausea subside a little. So I hop in the car and just sit. I think it was at least half an hour or so. I watched 3 or 4 riders pass by. I knew I was loosing a place or two in ranking (not all those guys had reached their tenth lap yet). I couldn’t do anything about it. I was nodding off–it was around 3am. I couldn’t eat anything solid. Finally I pulled myself from the car and threw a leg back over the Bianchi.
That last half lap, down West River Road I had the following discussion in my head:
“So you gonna quit now?”
“No, I just need another lap to match what I did last year.”
“Why do you need to match last year?”
“Because I’m stronger this year and it only makes sense to at least duplicate last year’s accomplishment.”
“But your stomach feels 10 times worse than last year.”
“Doesn’t matter. You should do that 11th lap.”
“I can’t. No energy. The stomach is sucking the will from me to continue.”
“But your legs feel great. There’s another lap at 17mph in them still!”
“I know, the legs feel great. Shut up about the legs. It’s all about the stomach now.”
“Stomach, shmumach. Quite yer bitchin’ and do another lap!”
“I caaannnn’t” (in whiny little girl voice)
“Dammit! You know you already lost another place or two in the rankings sitting there in Brian’s car like turtle! Don’t lose any more!”
“I didn’t come here for rankings. I came here to compete against myself!”
“Yeah, well it turns out competing against yourself is working out OK and in the process beating a couple other guys out on the course.”
“If I quit now, it’s on my terms. If I’m forced to quit after starting another lap it’ll feel that much worse having to actually RIDE in a sag wagon (Brian’s car in this instance) back to the finish. I’ve only been forced to do that ONCE before. And hated it then.”
“Good point. Maybe I’ll consider it.”
“Yeah you consider it all you want, Italics-Boy. I’m stopping when I get back to the checkpoint.
And so it was. The decision to abort with two hours remaining on the clock. I hated to do it. But just couldn’t muster the will to overcome the crippling, debilitating, mind-numbing, soul-crunching, throat-tightening, stomach-souring, thoroughly annoying nausea.
At about 7:30am I was starting my post-ride nap/sleep. Around 11 or noon I woke up. Had some mint-chocolate chip ice cream, then went back to sleep. Around 3pm woke up and rummaged through my car… found an unopened back of chips I had bought for a softball game a week before. Ate the whole thing. Big bag. The salt was good. Finally started to feel hungry and not queasy so had a nice mozzarella and tomato salad. That was about 10 hours or so after the ride. Again… the muscles were fine. Dammit. Just the stomach. Dammit.
Let me tell you I’m not making that mistake a third time. I can’t wait to tackle an event like this again and do it RIGHT! I know I can hit 400 miles! Not just 319. Or last year’s 351. 400!
‘Course, this is me talking a week later. For a couple days immediately after the event I was all “Crap, man, that was tough.” “I don’t know if I’d put myself through that again…” Funny how time changes your perspective on things.
A spooky Friday the 13th evening ride
Well, it wasn’t THAT spooky. It was just an excuse to get the group together and usher Heather back into the pantheon of pedals. (How’s that for alliteration?) After many, many weeks off the bike, Heather is well enough from her surgery to go for a spin. Welcome back, girl, we missed you.
About 15 or so of us met at Andrew and Heather’s house for a casual spin of about 20 or so miles. A smallish group went off the front and we ended up having a beer water break at Geno’s house.
The trip home was a direct shot in order to catch up with the other half of the group which had already circled back and was busting out the post-ride grub. Direct shot in the sense that it was shorter. Not straighter. I think we made more turns in the last two miles than I made in my 24 hour ride.
The video, in order: Geno, Sean, Brian, Nick, Dave and Nicolette. Camera man: me, obviously.
