ultras & other races – Page 17

Kona bike course

I have a new appreciation for Kona Ironman finishers. A week ago Sunday I rode the bike course on a Specialized Allez rental. At first glance there is nothing particularly difficult about the ride. It’s fairly flat, out-and-back on good pavement and mostly very wide shoulders. The challenge is the unrelenting wind. It wasn’t too bad when I started, about 7 am. But winds were 30-40 mph for six miles in and out of Hawi, the turnaround point of the route. It was a bit calmer for a few miles. Then, after turning south onto the main highway to Kailua, I faced 15-20 mph winds for the remaining 40+ miles. I took a brisk 2 mile walk with my sister afterwards (which nearly made me puke because I’d eaten a bowl of cereal before I saw her lacing up her walking shoes). I don’t think there’s any way I could’ve run 26 miles.

Wrenching at the Stonewall Century

A great day for the “final” Stonewall Century!! But it won’t be the final, a new event director will take over in 2010. This is a beautiful ride and still small, friendly event. I heard there were about 550 riders this year, though I don’t know the official total. I was wrenching, not riding, but I commented to the race director about the high fitness level of the riders compared to some centuries I’ve ridden; Elephant Rock and Tour de Tucson. She said the first year some people complained about how hard the ride was. Those people didn’t come back. And I guess the word got around about the challenge of this ride.

August 15, 2009, North Lake Sag Station - Mile 25/75

Following the Tour de France

Carlos Sastre climbing Alpe d' Huez during the 2008 TDF

Last year I got to ride part of the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France. It was our sixth tandem ride and an airline workers’ strike start meant we got a very late start. We got to the 2k to go mark and the road was closed to cyclists. We had a long, increasingly cold, wait with little food and water. Bad planning on our part as we did not prepare for the possibility of not making it to the finish. Still it was exciting to experience the famous climb in person and see Carlos Sastre’s break that helped him win the 2008 Tour de France.

Ride near Castillonnès, France, July 2009

This year I spent a few days following the Tour with a group of six. Our base was Grindoux, just outside Castillonnès, France. We rented Merckx bikes from Apolo Cycles in Bergerac. The bikes are very nice; full carbon with Shimano 105 components. I brought my own saddle, and pedals.

A couple days before the Tour got to Spain, we drove from Castilllonnès to Barcelona and rented an apartment in the Gothic district for two nights and a day. I’d spent a few days in Barcelona with my family last summer and it was great to be there again without the pressure of needing to see all the famous sights. I spent a leisurely morning walking the Gothic District and La Rambla, watched the Tour on TV in the afternoon. Some people in our group did Barcelona-in-a-day and others Barcelona-in-an-afternoon (by bus). We met that evening for Paella.

The night before the Girona-to-Barcelona stage we stayed in Caldes de Malavella, Spain, and did a short ride near the beach at Palamos that afternoon and ate dinner in Girona. The morning of Stage 6 we rode about 14 miles to the start watched the start festivities, and rode back to our Caldes de Malavella, before a long, scenic drive through the Pyrenees to Encamp, Andorra.

We left Encamp by bicycle about 8:30 AM on Friday for Andorre Arcalis. I made it to the top and was very excited to see another person from our group come around the barricade just as I was heading down to meet her. There were lots of hats and samples given by sponsors near the finish line. With nearby refreshment stands and a good seat near the jumbotron, the wait for the caravan and race finish seemed short. The riders had to bike down Arcalis so we were passed by many, including Contador, Sastre, Armstrong, Leipheimer, et al on our way back to Encamp. It was really a great day, much less crowded than Alpe d’Huez had been. In my limited experience, a mountain top finish on a non-famous climb seems to be a great opportunity to see and ride a Tour stage.

The next day the race started in Andorre-la-Vieille and came right past our hotel. JB and I went for a short ride on the race route toward Envilira Pass. We had to get back before the road was closed for the caravan so we didn’t make it to the top of the Pass. After the riders passed Encamp we headed for Arreau, France, near the base of the Col d’Aspin.

On Sunday, four of us started from Arreau for the Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet. One rider decided to stop at the top of the Col d’Aspin with a great view of the breakaway coming up many switchbacks of the Col and an easy descent back to Arreau. Three of us continued on toward the Col du Tourmalet. I got to the top of the Tourmalet about 11 AM. It was a difficult climb, but the hardest part was negotiating the sea of Basque demonstrators that emerged onto the route from the parking lot about 4km from the top. I emerged from the crowd about 2km from the top and enjoyed the rest of the climb in relative calm. At the top I took a few photos and headed back down, meeting my friends about 13km from the summit, near Gripp. We watched the caravan and race come through at a cafè local residents had set up in their garage. After the riders passed we had a good ride back over the Col d’ Aspin to Arreau and a 4 hour drive back to Castillonnès.

I’ve been riding here in the Lot-et-Garonne region of France since we returned. I’ll post more about that another day.

24 Hours of ERock and Elephant Rock 100

The grass gives a hint of the wind on Saturday.

My biggest challenge this year has been the 24 Hours of ERock followed by the Elephant Rock 100 on tandem. JB and I had planned to ride Little Red Riding Hood on June 6, but by the time we got around to registering it was full. I was looking for another century for us that weekend and saw there was a century and 24 hour mountain bike race at Elephant Rock. Sounded like a good challenge so I signed up to ride ERock, 6pm-6pm, June 5-6, and 100 miles on the tandem on June 7.

Although I’ve been training a lot this year, by the time June 4 rolled around I was really questioning whether or not I could do both these rides. I felt it would be selfish and unfair to my tandem partner if I couldn’t finish 100 miles on Sunday, but at that point all I could do is go for it.

My two previous 24 hour races have been completed at a very leisurely effort. Not to say it’s ever easy to ride 23-24 hours, but I started 24 Hours of ERock at a much harder, albeit still moderate, effort. Again, I was wondering if I shouldn’t back off to save my legs for Sunday’s tandem ride. I kept up my pace knowing that I’d ridden about half of the 300k two weeks earlier at a moderate pace and hadn’t felt too bad the next day.

We had to retreat from the hill to the car.

I had in the back of my mind that I’d like to get in 200 miles, because a 300 mile weekend would be a nice, round number. My past 24-hour MTB experience made me think that getting in 25 laps would be impossible….I was hoping for 24, but before I’d been out 12 hours, I knew 25 laps would be possible.

The wind was ferocious on Saturday, but really only affected riders for the first 3 (due west) miles of each lap. The problem I was having by noon on Saturday was lack of sleep. In fact I think the biggest disadvantage older riders have in ultras is their decreased tolerance for sleep deprivation. Sleepiness was making me think about stopping early…22 or 23 laps would still be a good race, and it seemed that the 2nd place woman had already stopped with 11.

1992 Kona Hot. Possibly the oldest bike in the race.

During my 22nd lap I calculated that I could stop for a 45 min nap and still have 3 hours to finish my last three laps. I decided to take a nap break for two reasons, 1) I was feeling a little dangerous on the downhill part of the course, 2) I need practice incorporating sleep breaks if I’m going to do longer rides. My nap during the 24 Hours of Targhee in 2008 seemed to affect me negatively so I’d been worried about stopping. In retrospect, I think the main problem at Targhee was lack of training, and sleeping a little too early … before I got to the point that I could barely keep my eyes open, and could sleep through anything.

The nap worked well, and I felt much better on my last three laps. I stopped at 23:02:27 with 25 laps, 206 miles.

Great! Yay! …except I had to start another 100miles in about 12 hours. It seemed to take forever for the post-race ceremonies to get going, and I felt rude for leaving early, but sleep time was rapidly disappearing. We drove to the hotel, checked-in, hauled our gear inside, set up the tandem and showered. It was after 10pm before lights were out and I negotiated for an extra hour of sleep. I thought chances were 50/50 that I’d be able to ride the next day, but I was too tired to lie awake worrying about it.

5:30am Sunday – Hmmm. I don’t feel to bad. What’s it going to be like to walk? Not sore really. Hope the bike saddle is not too painful.

306 miles on the left, 100 on the right. No problem!

The bike saddle was not painful, even though I find the stoker compartment to be one of the most uncomfortable in cycling. The good thing is that riding in the back is a mental break, all I had to do was pedal. JB took the brunt of the another day of howling wind and all the tiring decision-making that goes along with captaining a tandem.

When we passed the turn-off where the 60-mile and 100-mile routes diverged with no conversation I had a little private celebration, knowing we’d finish the 100. Most of the ride around Black Forest was great. We got a lot of practice standing on climbs on the many rolling hills, and enjoyed tandem aerodynamic benefits on the descents.

The 300k I’d done two weeks early had followed a similar route. Having stopped at the Black Forest General Store at Burgess and Black Forest Road during that ride I knew that it was worth a couple 100 yards of extra pedaling. We enjoyed their clean bathrooms and Vegan cookies and got to skip a couple Port-o-let stops.

Once we got to the end of Roller Coaster Road and headed west we hit the wind. It was a little scary for me, but the stoker’s challenge is to just relax and be confident in your captain’s skills. We had a regrouping/rest stop about 30 miles from the finish. Then, in spite of the wind, had a pretty easy ride back to Castle Rock … at least from the stoker’s view.