To that end, I started looking for local sponsored bike rides. A wise man told me that the best way to train for a ride is to register for one, so a little over a month ago, I found and signed up for the Pensacola Tour de Cure. I'm familiar with this ride, as I rode in the Chattanooga Tour de Cure several years in a row, when I still lived in TN. The local ride was only a metric, not a 2 day 150 mile adventure, but it's a good start. However, since it's been 3 years since I've touched my road bike, much less ridden on a regular basis, I decided to play it safe, and I registered for the 42 mile ride. That sparked the fire to get me training, and I've been hitting my exercise bike and elliptical at home pretty hard over the last month...
Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan... about 3 weeks ago, I got a bad dish at a local sushi joint and came down with the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had. I was miserable for a solid week, and uncomfortable for a week after that... and during those 2 weeks, I didn't have the will or the energy to continue my workouts. On top of that, I went in for Lasik surgery during all that, which made me overly cautious about working out. So, while I started off strong with a good 3 weeks of solid workouts, I only spent about 2-3 hours total working out in the last 3 weeks before the Tour de Cure. Additionally, none of my training involved getting on my *real* bike and pedaling it around, and anyone who's been on a real bike and an exercise bike knows that the different between the 2 is dramatic. Not my best start, but I was determined to do this ride!
I've spent most of the last week gearing up for this... replacing missing or broken equipment, cleaning my gear, and making sure everything was in place for the ride. Of course, through all of this gearing up, I never actually got around to really checking out the most important item in this little endeavor... my Bike! Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find time over the previous month to actually take my road bike down off the wall and try to ride it. So really, by the morning of the ride, I was rolling the dice to see if I would even be able to ride or not.
The day of the ride finally came and I managed to drag myself out of bed at 3:30am to get a shower and load up the car for my drive over to Gulf Breeze. In what has to be a first time EVER in my biking career, I was on time and on schedule all morning long. I got out of bed, showered, got my breakfast sorted out, car loaded, and hit the road by 4:45, all right on time. I had my trusty iPhone with turn by turn directions preset to the ride starting location. I did forget my Red Bull, which annoyed me, but I was in such a good mood I let it slide. In fact, I was in such a good mood, and having so much fun reliving my old biking days that I began entertaining the idea of doing the entire 62 mile ride. The weather was set to be perfect (mid 70's, partly cloudy, etc), so by the time I rolled into Gulf Breeze, I had worked myself up to doing the whole thing. I got there 5 minutes before registration started.
Here's where things began to go pear shaped on me... I got to registration and found that the folks at the TDC had misplaced my registration packet. No one could find it and no one could figure out where it went. Next, I went over to claim my ride t-shirt... note that I was there 5 minutes BEFORE registration started, and they were already out of 2XL shirts. So far, not a good start and my resolution began to falter. However, I struck up a conversation with another early bird rider, someone familiar with the area... he informed me that the wind was moving in the right direction. While we would be riding into a headwind for the first half of the ride, we were going to have an awesome tail wind for the back half, the pretty part of the ride: the 25 miles along the Navarre beach. By the time I went back to registration to claim my substitute registration package, I was back on track to do the full ride.
So, I finished gearing up for the ride... got my bike aired up and rolled over to the start line. I saw another rider (in much better shape than me) sporting the exact same Trek 5000 that I ride... kinda cool, actually. It's nice to know that my bike isn't obsolete! The MC of the event kicked things off, and after a quick 5 minute talk, we all hit the road. The ride started at 7:00AM. The 62 mile route went back across the Gulf Breeze bridge back to Pensacola, around downtown Pensacola, then back across the bridge to meet up with the 42 mile route. I had hoped that the split between the 40/60 mile route would be half way through the ride, so I could make the choice to do the 62 mile route after I had 20-30 miles under me, but due to the way the course was laid out, I had to make the call right off the bat, which means that as soon as I hit the asphalt at 7:00, I was committed to the full ride. It's a point of pride with me that I've never had to walk my bike through a part of a ride and I've never failed to do a ride that I started, so there was nothing left for me to do but just do it.
The ride started off at a weaving through the nearby subdivision at a gentle 15mph pace. After a mile or two of that, we hopped back on the main drag, and we headed for the bridge back to Pensacola. I was already beginning to slow down, partly due to the headwind we were riding into but also because I knew I had to pace myself carefully or I would burn myself out and not be able to finish the ride. So, I dropped back and took my time over the bridge, then cruised into historic Pensacola. We road around the historic district for a bit, making our way to the pier where we hit a round-about and began the return trip to Gulf Breeze. Taking the bridge on the way back was *nice*, because the head wind I was fighting against on my way over the bridge was now a favorable tail wind... so, aside from climbing the short hill in the middle of the bridge, I made damn fine time getting back across the bay.
By this point, I had ridden about 14-15 miles, and was ready for a SAG stop. Fortunately, even though I forgot my Red Bull or 5-Hour Energy, I did remember to snag my Shot Bloks. If you aren't familiar with these things, they are the new Crack of the fitness world. Imagine if you will, a pack of giant gummy blocks that contained caffeine, sugars, carbs, and electrolytes, all designed to give you a quick shot of energy and some extra fuel to keep you moving... Now imagine they taste like candy... and came in packs of 6. You might picture something like this in your head...
You can pick these up at most bike shops, or online... and now that I know they come in fruit punch, I'll be ordering a box of them before my next ride... If you're interested, you can see more for yourself... Anyway, I cracked open a bag and thew a couple back when I got to the first rest stop, and by the time I got back to the start line to pick up the other 42 miles, I was feeling better about life.
By the time I made it back past the finish line, the 42 mile pack (which started a half hour after the 62 mile pack did) had long since left the pavilion. That didn't bother me so much, I know I was out of shape for this, so I wasn't expecting to be a speed demon. However, that didn't stop me from feeling good about myself to run into some of the 42 mile folks at the next rest stop, and what was about 21 miles in for me. After getting a sip of Gatorade and a quick snack, I hopped back on my bike and took off. This was the part of the ride where I learned several things...
- Always check your cue sheet... turns out the next rest stop wasn't for another 20 miles!
- I hate head winds... and the next 20 miles was pretty much all head wind.
- Never ride alone if you can avoid it.
- Never pass up a bathroom when you're drinking fluids at about 3 times your normal rate...
Fortunately, my luck was about to change. Just as I was cursing myself for getting out of bed that morning, I ran across a pair of hapless young ladies who had obviously gotten themselves in over their heads. They were both riding borrowed mountain bikes (which hadn't been adjusted for them), they had 1 water bottle between the 2 of them (which was almost empty), neither one of them knew how to gear properly, they had only gone about 10 miles, got lost once already, and they were already out of steam... and the next rest stop was 12 miles away! They were barely able to keep an 8mph average, and I was getting desperate just to have someone to ride with to keep myself moving, so I dropped back and kept them company for a bit...
The two girls were good company. I can't recall their names (big surprise there), but they were glad for the company, especially when I started giving them advice. Since I had 3 full packs of shock blocks with me, I took another pack out and handed it to one of them, to split between the 2 of them. I told them how to switch gears properly, told them why they were having trouble, and made several minor adjustments in their riding style that made their lives a little bit easier. I tried to offer them my spare water bottle, but they didn't want to take it, insisting they would be OK until the next rest stop with the little bit of water they had left between them. We rode together like this, at around 8mph, for the next 2-3 miles. Somewhere around the mile 30 mark, we got passed by a group of folks who were moving at a pace that looked comfortable for me, so I said my goodbyes and wished the girls good luck, then took off to catch up to the pack that had just passed us.
Turns out, this was a brilliant move on my part. These cats were moving at about a 13-14mph pace, even in the headwinds, and were more than happy to chat with each other the whole time we were riding. They welcomed me into their happy little pace-line without any trouble, and we stuck together for the rest of the day. I did leave them very briefly at about mile 40... (see point 4 above), but I waited at the next rest stop and we all clipped in together and rode off from there.
My new companions were a mixed lot... we had Jamie, the 42 year old mother of 3, who I swear to god was in her mid 20s... we had Gelon, a retired CPA who was just out for fun and fitness, and we had the retired couple, Jake and Rachel, who were cruising along happily in their tandem recumbent bike. We set off from the 41 mile rest stop together and began the climb over the Navare bridge, over to what would be beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best part of the ride... the beach! Remember that tail wind I was talking about earlier? Yeah, it was so very very nice...
So, off we went... our speed jumped up to a casual 16mph pace, with none of us really having to work hard to keep it up. We alternated pulling, sometimes riding side by side to chat, sometimes single file to let traffic pass. The beach was absolutely gorgeous, especially when we got onto the protected portion, away from all the condos and the tourists! At one point, we passed some sort of giant kite festival, and that was all kinds of awesome. I haven't seen kites like that since California! Later on down the road, we passed a column of motor cycles that had to be 150-200 riders long. We had to stop to let them pass in fact, as they were cutting us off from the next rest stop! We actually had to turn around and ride back down a parking lot for a couple hundred feet to get to the stop, and that's when we found out just how heavy the tail wind we were riding really was! And let me just say... I can't tell you how glad I was that we got the headwind at the beginning of the ride!
The rest of the ride was pretty easy going from there. We chatted, Rachel took lots of pictures, I talked up RideYellow to them, in the hopes that we could ride together again then, and we all had a good time. We were feeling so good, in fact, that we decided to cruise past the last rest stop entirely and just truck it on home. Truth be told, I probably should have stopped, my lower back felt about ready to break, but I wasn't going to be the one to stop our momentum, so I just sucked it up and kept on moving. More than once that day my friend Cat's mantra of 'Just keep Spinning! Just keep Spinning!' fluttered through my head.... and keep spinning I did, right up until we rolled in to home base, at just over 63 miles. Considering that I haven't been on my bike in 3 years, I'll take it!
Rachel was kind enough to get us a group photo of our new team, 'Team Conclusion'!
(Gelon, Jamie, me, Rachel, and Jake)
So yeah... it was great fun. It took a lot out of me though.... I got home, got cleaned up, and crawled into bed at about 3:30pm Saturday... and did not get out of bed until 7:30am the next morning. Gotta love 16 hours of sleep! I also got a nasty sunburn, including raccoon face and my racing stripes (it's NOT a fucking Farmer's Tan!), but it was totally worth it!
I'm continuing my training regiment, working towards Ride Yellow. I found that the parts of me that really hurt after the ride were my arms and hands (from supporting my upper body weight), and my ass (from sitting in the saddle). These are things that I can't replicate at home on my exercise bike, so I'll have to start incorporating crunches and push ups, to get some strength in those areas... but even if that's all I do between now and June, I know I'll be ready for Ride Yellow this year!
Anyway, that's all I've got... I'll post more as I get closer to the next ride!
Crash
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