In the mountains no one can hear you scream

Do any of you remember how during my taper for Boston I got a little bit overly ambitious on mapmyride.com? On all the Google maps there was this big, green chunk in upstate New York calling out to me, Claaaaaaire, come ride in me! Not one to ignore spooky voices in my head, when I saw that it was going to rain Sunday all over New England I looked at the weather report for upstate New York: Cloudy, but dry. Well that settled it.

I mapped out a loop through the Adirondacks starting in Lake George and winding up along Lake Champlain to Lake Placid. It worked out to be about 160 miles, but whatever, I was sure I could handle it. I would have no choice if I had to get back to my car, right? I mean, there were 3 lakes on my rout, and everyone knows that water settles to the lowest point in any given place. Therefore it would be flat, of course. I ignored the elevation profile, figuring that it would be fiiiiiiiiiiine. And if I got tired before I hit the required distance, too bad. I would still have to get back to my car no matter what. The idea was to go really, really long to make a quick jump to the next level in my cycling fitness anyway, so the more I wore myself down, the better.


Still, I thought it would be wise to keep the total distance of my rout to myself when I told people what my plans were. Diane, at work, reminded me that I would be in the middle of the woods with no one around. "And you know who hangs out in the woods...?" she said. Hikers? Tree huggers? Lumberjacks? Cute, fuzzy animals? I don't know... "Creeps!" she announced. "I don't think you should go."
When I told my parents where I was planning on going my mom asked if I would stay with her aunt who lives somewhere in upstate New York (and must be about a thousand years old). "It's just a 4-hour drive," I said. Driving back from CT at night doesn't bother her, but for some reason driving home from nature seemed like a really long way. My mom has really twisted logic sometimes.
"What if you get lost?" Dad said.
"I'm not going to get lost. There are only like 5 turns on the rout and they're like the ONLY roads there are out there. I can't get lost!" Still, I studied the map for days to make sure I knew where everything was.
"I just think it's a dumb idea," said Dad in his condescending, know-it-all voice that is tailor-made to make you feel stupid. Well that was it. Now I HAD to do it, just to prove that this was NOT a stupid idea, although doubts were creeping in... Not about whether I should do the driving all in one day. Not about creeps hiding in the woods dressed up as tree huggers or cute, fuzzy animals. I was beginning to wonder if 160 miles was really a good idea. And what if I had some mechanical problem? What if I got lost? What if I really got too tired to get back to my car? How's the cell phone reception out there?

The Prologue

So did I take it easy the day before? Don't be silly. I did a ride with the crew from the bike shop. I was the only girl, like I always am, but I held my own alright. We started out easy, and I was getting a little annoyed. What the fuck, I wasn't even pedaling. This wasn't even a workout. Then, as roadies will, they started surging. I still suck at drafting as much as I ever have, especially with a group of guys I don't know. I kept zoning out for a minute, finding myself a few lengths behind, and having to push to catch up. By mile 30 I was out of water, very hungry, and falling behind on the climbs.

The course was by no means hilly, but there were a lot of short rollers that my legs are still not used to after a whole winter on the trainer. They would pull ahead, I would drop back a bit, and then the King of the Bike Geeks (the one who sold me my bike) would put his hand on my back and start pushing. I hate it when people touch me. I really hate it when men touch me, but we're not going to get into that... Then he starts going on and on about how he hasn't trained all winter and he's really into the "death march" now. "Well, maybe you would have more energy if you didn't have to push my fat ass around," I said.
"You're not fat," he said. That wasn't the point. Quit touching me! THAT was the point.
Then we got to a longer, slower climb. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he hooked his fingertips on my spine and dragged me closer to him. There was nothing inappropriate about it, except that our handlebars were touching which made me nervous, but I couldn't get away because I couldn't surge forward (I didn't have the power), I couldn't go left (he was there), I couldn't go right (he had his fingers half way around my spine), and I couldn't drop back (his hand was there). He hung on and stayed there for what felt like an eternity. After the 55-ish mile ride and a stop in the shop to stock up on supplies for tomorrow I got home thoroughly drained and vowing to ride more hills so that no one would ever touch me again!

Like I said, faster in the middle.

The Adirondacks

The drive to Lake George is over 4 hours long, so I got up at 3:45 in order to hit the road early. To avoid toll roads my directions took me a weird rout through northern New Hampshire and Vermont, then through some backwater highways into the park. Driving on one of these rinky-dink 2-lane 55 mph scenic routs I came to Woodstock, VT. I drove by a police cruiser with its lights on. Then I saw that the speed limit had gone down to 25. Good thing I saw that, I thought as I dropped down to 25. The cop car pulled out. What the fuck? Was I getting pulled over?! I hadn’t even been speeding! I pulled into a parking lot and the cop came up behind me. I wasn’t mad or anything, because I KNEW that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was just a speed trap f’chrissake. They all get us some time, it was just my turn. It wasn’t worth getting mad over, but I was still glad that it was raining and she was the one that had to get out of the car, not me. “Do you know why I pulled you over?” she asked. She had puffy hair like only country people have. If you don’t get out of Woodstock, VT much, you might not know that puffy hair hasn’t been in fashion since the 80’s.
“Well, after I saw you I saw a sign that said 25 mph and slowed down,” I said. “Sorry, I’m not familiar with the area.” Stupid country towns, they have nowhere to pull in municipal dollars than to snag a city slicker every weekend. What other explanation was there for her being out here at 7am on a Sunday?
“Well it was the second sign,” she said. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but it still wouldn’t surprise me if she was waiting there at the first sign. “Do you know how fast you were going?”
“Like 50 or 55,” I said, honestly.
“52.” So I WASN’T SPEEDING! She wrote me a ticket saying I’d only been going 35, which was nice, because awful things happen if you’re going twice the speed limit, and I was on my way. I just shoved the ticket in my glove compartment and forgot about it. I was NOT going to let this ruin my day.

My directions were going fine until I came to a T-stop that was not on my directions. North or south? I chose north. If I was right, then great; if I was wrong, then it would cut distance off my ride. It turns out that I was wrong, and wound up cutting Lake George completely off my rout, but that’s okay. I have bad memories of a vacation there when I was in middle school. That vacation is a family joke to this day. It included fish in the toilet and bugs in the beds. I did not need to see Lake George again.

I parked at a Park and Ride, got my shit together, and got ready to go. The only thing I had left to do was find a bathroom. Across the street was this sign: (my birthday's coming up, anyone want to buy me a new camera?) and a flag that said “OPEN”. I had no idea what the sign might mean, but surely they had a bathroom. I went up the walk and found only two trailers and a truck sitting in the mud. The larger of the two trailers had wooden pallets lying in the mud to serve as a walkway. I went up the “walk” gingerly trying not to get my cleats stuck between the wood slats and opened the door. Inside it was set up just like a bakery, only it was a TRAILER. This guy had a whole bakery capable of making bread and pastries set up in a SOLAR POWERED TRAILER. Cool huh? But I had a feeling that his home wasn’t much more than the bakery itself and felt bad asking for a bathroom. “Umm, is that parking lot across the way for all day parking?” I asked instead. Country folk sure do live differently than I do...

It was cloudy and cool as I set out. Where I parked was in a low marshland just south of Lake Champlain, but the rollers didn’t waste one single second. What had looked like flat land on the elevation profile was actually a bunch of tiny, steep hills one after the other. The thought occurred to me, This is going to suck on the way back. But that didn’t register, not really.

After about an hour and a half I found myself climbing a long, steady hill the likes of which I hadn’t seen since Europe, not even in stupid Connecticut. I climbed and climbed and climbed for miles and miles. Sweat started to drip down my face. I was breathing hard and pedaling to the rhythm of my breathing. I sniffed and got sweat up my nose. It felt like I had sea water up my nose and I couldn't make it go away. It sure was beautiful up here, and I couldn’t remember the last time I climbed a real mountain. Next time, I swore, I was going to bring someone up here with me. This was too beautiful to be doing all by myself. The clouds were just overhead, caught on the tops of the mountains around me. I crested the hill and rode down in a tuck: pedals at 3 and 6, hands in the drops, nose practically resting on my handlebars. The wind howled in my ears and my naked eyes watered. I hit 45mph. I got to the bottom and realized I was grinning. Then, just as I pulled up to the T-stop at the bottom of the hill, the sun came out. I stopped to take a couple of pictures, and when a cop stopped and looked at me I smiled and gave him the thumbs up to show that I was holding my phone up to take pictures, not to get reception. Then I rode off. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy.

I stopped and bought batteries for my real camera (I’d checked them last night, but when I took it out this morning they were dead, go figure) and pedaled down the road through tiny little towns with signs that said “Have a safe trip!” as you left, then miles upon miles of nothing. I followed signs for Lake Placid, and was surprised to see that it would only be 50 miles exactly from where I parked.

Then I hit another hill. This one was longer with a few long, steep grades broken up with mellower uphill stretches. The highway followed the river, so the scenery was spectacular with the swollen river roaring away below and the towering mountains to either side of me. I was in such a good mood, that the tone in my head really was as cheezy as the tone in which I’m writing.

Grade vs. Distance for the major uphill chunks on the

way out. I have trouble making sense of these graphs, but
basically anything above the line is uphill. The higher
above the midline it is, the steeper the grade.
Any big colored-in chunk is a long climb.

I turned a corner and sticking out waaay above the trees were the Olympic ski jumping slopes. Hoool-ly SHIT, you guys! Have I mentioned that I’m afraid of heights? Those things were SO tall, and the slopes were so steep and narrow. Ski jumpers must be the most fearless and stupid motherfuckers on this earth!

I knew I was getting close to Lake Placid because kitted-out cyclists were zooming down the road in the other direction huddled low on their aero bars. No one dresses that geeky for a training ride except ironmen. Folks, remind me NEVER TO SIGN UP FOR IRONMAN LAKE PLACID! I know the thought’s going to cross my mind someday, so I’m counting on you all to talk me out of it. That bike course goes up the hill I just described TWICE. FUCK THAT!

I got into the town of Lake Placid around 1 o’clock. What a change from the hick towns I’d been riding through! Everything, but everything had Olympic rings on the side of it and a half dozen flags in front of it, and every store was a bike shop, ski shop, running shop, or clothing shop that would only appeal to athletes (i.e. Life is Good TM). I sat on a bench overlooking the lake sat on a bench to eat a Lära bar. I wasn’t really hungry or tired, so I just bought 2 liters of Gatorade and hit the road again.

Like I said, anyone wanna buy me a new camera?

Coming out of town there was this enormous grade that had me redlining to the top. Once I crested it the most horrible heartburn set in. It felt like I was either having a heart attack or being stabbed in the chest. What happened?! I’d been eating out of the bag of shot blocks, papaya chunks, and candy orange slices in my bento box all day without a problem. I’d had Accelerade in my camelbak all day. But now, every time I put food in my mouth, my chest would ache and burn every time my heartrate went up. I swear, I will never, ever drink Gatorade again for as long as I live. Gatorade makes you have a heart attack.

There was one long-ish grade back to the top of the mountain, and when I rode over it my chest felt AWFUL. I remember thinking, I will never do IMLP because it gives you a miochartial infarction! Some of you who have been with me for awhile might remember that when I’m riding alone, I make noise. I’ll scream and yell and swear and talk to the wind or terrain or cars or whatever, because no one’s around to think I’m nuts. So as my chest ached and burned I screamed and moaned and groaned and yelled and swore out loud, at the top of my lungs when it got bad.

After the shorter, steep climbs out of Lake Placid, I got to ride back down the monster mountain. I practiced my tucking again as I flew down the mountain at a million, billion miles per hour. I experimented with holding my hands on the centers of the handlebars like the pros do instead of the drops. It didn’t feel any faster to me, and it made it harder to steer and took my hands away from the brakes. Still, I looked cool, so now that my confidence was up, I rode like this more and more... when folding up like that didn’t make me feel like I was taking a hot knife to the chest, that is. What the hell, I NEVER get heartburn!

When I got to the bottom of the hill my directions had me turning left, while I had come from the right before. Remember, I was not parked where I’d expected to park when I wrote out the rout, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I decided to follow the rout and set off into the unknown to my right. Oh my god, I was going S L O W. I was on my little chain ring and still couldn’t squeeze the power out of my legs. I knew I had to keep eating, but that gave me more heart attacks, which made me yell and scream more. What’s more, I wasn’t 100% sure of my directions. I was supposed to be following Rte 9, rather than 9N, which I’d taken to get up here, but you know how these country roads are: sometimes they take one name, and you don’t see the other name until they split apart miles later. And I had no idea what direction the road I was on went in. For all I knew it went all the way up to Canada. I’d tried to print up a map, but for some reason Google maps doesn’t like to print. After about 5 miles of doubt, I stopped, ate another bar, and turned back. Oh my God, all this time I’d thought I’d been on a flat, when I was really going up! I coasted easily back up the road from whence I had come into... a gnarley headwind! I swear, this headwind was not here when I came up this way! I don’t know how fast it was blowing, but there are headwinds you can deal with, and then there are what-the-fuck headwinds. This was a what-the-fuck headwind. I was around 80 miles now, getting VERY tired, having heart attacks every few minutes, and this was NOT what I needed right now. Certainly not with the hill I had in front of me. I remembered myself grinning as I’d blown down it this morning, and wished I could have gone back in time and slapped that stupid grin off my own face and screamed, “You DO realize you have to go UP that thing again, you fucking idiot!”
I thought that at least when I turned the corner and went into the mountains the headwind might go away. I was wrong, it was a dead-on what-the-fuck gale and I was riding right into it. Actually, I wound up going so slow that I was kind of thankful that it cooled my face, but still I did despair for a minute or two. Before I started climbing I took a second to regroup. There was no sense in feeling sorry for myself. I just had to suck it up and climb it and that was that. As I started climbing in my easiest gear and heaving for air I just repeated over and over to myself. “Just - get – o – ver – it.” The mantra helped. I switched back and forth between thinking it meant, “Quit complaining and harden the fuck up,” or “Don’t think, just climb.” Every once in awhile I would remind myself, “The-hill-DOES-end. Just-get-o-ver-it.” And I got over it without cracking... for now. As a reward I got another flying descent for several miles.

Just use it for background music for the following section.

But I’d used up everything I had mentally on that hill. I’d told myself I had to “Just get over it,” the “just” meaning “and then that’s it.” But that wasn’t it. I still had some 30 miles to go over rolling terrain. I hadn’t eaten in awhile, so my heart attacks had calmed down, but the what-the-fuck headwinds were just as bad here as they had been in the valley. The trees still didn't have any leaves and there wasn't so much as a plastic bag skittering across the street to give me an indication of how hard the wind was blowing. That really bothered me for some reason. If the wind is really blowing and I can SEE something flapping away, then it seems to validate me. But if there are no weeds, leaves, flags, or papers lying around to be blown in the wind it feels like it's all in my head. If it was all in my head, then that meant that I really was riding only about 10 mph on my little chainring on flat ground. No matter how you sliced it, I felt weak. I kept telling myself that it was good to get the slow rides out in training when you're all by yourself. Telling myself that worked for a few minutes, but I knew I was full of shit.

For some reason I felt like I had something to prove in this workout. It wasn't just all the people who told me I shouldn't do it that I had to prove something to, I was also competing against people who probably have no idea that I've been doing my homework on them. I've admitted that I chase Bob-O's times, but I had other people in my that I wanted to prove something to. Not that I wanted to get in these individuals' faces, I just wanted to post some speedy fast times, and maybe even lie and say "it felt easy." I looked down at my wrist. I'd only gone about 95 miles and 6 hours had come and gone, I think I'd actually passed the 6 1/2 hour mark at that point. What had held me together for miles were thoughts like, If I can just push a little harder I might be able to hit 112 miles in under 6:30. When that one went it was, Push a little harder and you can get a century in in under 6:30. When 6:30 came and went I briefly fixated on getting 112 miles in in under 7 hours. When I saw that that was not going to happen, I cracked.

The other thing spinning around in my mind was that one of the ideas behind this ride was to go over 112 miles, so mentally the distance would seem smaller. I wanted to teach both my mind to push past 112 miles, so that when staring down the barrel of a marathon, I wouldn't feel like I'd already put one max effort into my legs so far today. When I first turned back from Lake Placid I had planned to ride past my car the remaining 10 miles down to Lake George. Then, forever and ever for the rest of my life I could tell myself, "This is nothing, I've ridden 130 miles over mountains before." When the headwinds began, I told myself that I could choose between riding extra and a run-off. When seven hours came and went, like I said, I cracked, lost it, gave up. I spun in whatever gear offered the least resistance, sat up into the headwind, and gave up on the idea of running when I got back to the car.

My legs still actually felt okay. I wasn't sore and the thought never crossed my mind to walk my bike. I wasn't even really hungry. Mentally, though, I was cooked. The last 30 miles had been such a fight, and if I'd felt this bad going 112 miles, then how was I ever going to run after this, let alone run a marathon?! And still fresh in my mind was what a marathon felt like on FRESH legs, and despite doing all the training how it still hurt like hell. It really hit me then: What the fuck have I gotten myself into?! I was scared, but most of all I was disappointed in myself. I've never been fast or talented, but the one thing that I've always prided myself on was endurance, stubbornly barging on where every good reason said that I should quit. If I ever felt again the way that I felt at that very second, I knew I'd quit. It wasn't even that my body was that tired, I just... CRACKED.

I hadn't been quiet all afternoon, but my grunts and moans and screams had just been visceral reactions to how I was feeling. Now I started using words. "Just lighten the fuck up, would you!" I yelled at the wind. I came over a ridge and saw another hill ahead and moaned, "Nooooooooooo." In Spain I could yell "FUCK" when I dropped something, was startled, or hit my head, and even though people would look at me funny and everyone knew what it meant, it didn't really matter because it wasn't their language. I came to the bottom of an incline that was among the steepest of the day (around 15%) and yelled, "FUUUUUCK!" at the top of my lungs. I think some of the townspeople heard me. I think that in an English-speaking country, that might matter. A few minutes later I pushed up another hill and caught myself thinking, Maybe that was the last one. Don't you ever fucking think that, I said out loud. Because it's NEVER the last one. When the next hill rolled around, because there was no one around to see me, I started crying. There were no tears, it was the kind of crying spoiled kids do to get attention when they want out of wherever they are. I just wanted someone to swoop in and get me out of here. This is as close to a religeous experience as I get: Wishing I believed in God so I had someone to beg to get me out of here. And when I finally reached my car, I wasn't relieved, but angry. I felt like when someone's really late picking you up from the airport after a long flight, all you want to do is bitch somebody out.

Final stats:
Distance: 114.71 miles
Time: 7:17:40
Average speed: 15.7 mph
Total elevation gain: 9,335 ft

I packed my stuff into the car, took a short walk to clean out my legs, and started driving. I stopped at the first gas station I saw and bought some pretzels and peanuts even though I was still having chest pains. Maybe it was my heart breaking, maybe that's what it was. I peed for the first time since I left in the morning, and surprisingly it was mostly clear. God knows how that happened. Then I got in the car and made my way back to the highway. I doubled back over the road I had just ridden. I wasn't really thinking about much of anything. I was exhausted and numb. I felt like I'd gone somewhere emotionally that I'd only been once or twice before. Suddenly, out of nowhere I started sobbing. I don't know why, I wasn't sad in the least. I've heard of people who have cried after massages or after doing a max lift. I didn't feel much of anything, it just felt good to release it. It was like watching a good tear-jerker when you're in the right mood. So I drove and cried as I pulled onto the interstate back home.

I'd been driving for about an hour when I passed a sign that said something like, "Pittsburgh 42 miles, Montreal 135 miles." That's funny, I thought, those two cities aren't in the same direction. Then, at the next exit I passed, it didn't just say "EXIT 35", it said "EXIT/SORTIE". Oh shit! That's French! I'm headed towards Canada, and getting close by the looks of it! I snapped out of my self-indulgent funk and pulled off at the next exit. I swear I was paying attention when I got on the highway. It's just, they have the little "North" and "South" signs in such little type, and they both end in TH, have the same number of letters, and have an O in the middle. EaST and weST have similar problems. It's just my opinion, but they should either fix the signs, or fix the English language. Now I had to drive another hour just to get back to where I started, and with gas prices the way they are... Well it doesn't pay to cry and drive.

On the way back they had the big marquis flashing, PREPARE TO STOP AHEAD. I wonder why? I thought. Road work? An accident? When the cars started to slow down I was stupefied to see US border control agents. I had gone through border patrol checkpoints in California, Arizona, and Texas where they asked you questions and peered suspiciously through your car, but in New York? Were there really people sneaking Canadians through the border hidden under tarps in the back seat?

The best part of the day? Stinky Business Septic Pumping and Diner at mile 30. No kidding: diner and pooper services in the same building. The trucks simply said "Stinky" on the front.

I don't really have a conclusion to my tale. I'm not sore in the least. I wasn't ravenously hungry afterwards. I have been very sleepy, but that is probably because I got home way past my bedtime. I'm just a little, well, disappointed. So does anyone want to come with me next time? I promise, I'll do my best not to get too cranky when I get tired.