But on Thursday morning everything went wrong. First, I hardly slept. Next, I was out of bread AND eggs, so only had half the breakfast I usually have. Then I discovered that my Garmin hadn't been sitting properly in its cradle, and somehow it had turned itself on and drained all the batteries overnight. So I sat there for 2 hours waiting for it to charge and watching precious minutes tick by. When I finally did hit the road about 2 hours later than expected, it was raining. On top of that, I couldn't find an open bathroom at 6:30 in the morning. Finally I found some somewhat private shrubbery and popped a squat. As I was watering the already-saturated ground, I dropped my sunglasses and one of the lenses popped out. I couldn't find it in the wet underbrush and wasn't willing to look too closely since I couldn't be sure what was rain and what... wasn't, so I threw the remains of my glasses into a bush and got back on my bike. Time was of the essence. I was certainly going to have to do some night riding on the way back, and even though I had a light on my handlebars, I didn't have a headlamp to read my cue sheet. After an hour of riding I had only covered about 14 miles, and I decided that it just wasn't going to be safe for me to keep with it at the rate I was going, so I went home and beat myself up all day for being such a failure.Take Two
Now I was really determined to succeed. Saturday they were predicting "scattered thunderstorms," so I decided to take my chances and try my all-day ride again. I took some Tylenol PM at 5:00 and was out like a light and dreaming about doing yoga with Mick Jagger by seven. The alarm went off at 2:00 am, and I ate just the right amount of breakfast and hit the road at 3:00.
I've done embarrassingly little night riding, but it was nice having the road to myself. It's true what they say that you go much slower in the dark. I could only see about 50 feet in front of me, and with lots of shadows lurking about it was hard to spot all the potholes. I went at a snail's pace to make sure I didn't ride through some bottomless pothole. It was a warm and sticky night, and I was already sweating by the time the sun came up.
I'd already gone about 60 miles before I hit the first open store to refill my water bottles at around 7:30. It was the kind of convenience store you see in lemonade commercials and in Fannie Flagg novels with the three toothless old men sitting on the front porch stating the obvious and complaining about being old. "Getting an early start this morning?" one of the men asked me as I shoved a bottle of Gatorade under my arm. I didn't even know what time it was, it felt like mid-afternoon to me. "How far you going today?" asked another young guy who was putting out coffee pots.
"You don't want to know," I said. It sounds patronizing, but I've found that this is a safer answer than anything else. If I tell them the truth, then they either won't believe me, or they'll tell me to be careful. Both these things make me doubt myself. When you've got an all-day solo ride ahead of you, the last thing you need buzzing around your head for hours on end is doubt. Best not to share any information and make them keep their doubts to themselves.
Back out on the road, it was getting really hot. It was muggy from the 22 straight days of rain, and I was already sticky with sweat. I had been listening to my iPod overnight, but now that the world was starting to wake up I pulled my earphones out and just started listening to my own thoughts. Sometimes people ask me what I think about when I'm on the bike for that long. The answer is disappointing: I'm just thinking, "Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78. Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78..." until I get to the next turn, and then I start repeating the next direction over and over to myself. I couldn't tell you what I thought about as I rode the rest of the way up to Lake Winnipesaukee. My legs hadn't felt that great at the beginning of the ride, but around mile 70 I started to feel like myself again. The terrain was relentlessly rolling, and the pavement was pretty shitty in spots. The skin on my ass was already starting to bug me a little bit. I'm sponsored by a butt lube product, but wouldn't you know I completely forgot to grease up before I'd left the house in the morning. I still had about 170 miles to ride, and I was already feeling a bit irritable. How was this all going to work out?
I rode to the half-way point in Meredith, and when I realized that it was someone's house, and not a convenience store, I got downright PISSY. Then I realized that I was going to have to backtrack about 5 miles before going on, and I got even more grouchy. Pretty soon I hit a stretch of highway had regular frost heaves every 10 feet for about 25 miles, and I ended up whimpering and yelling at the road to lay off as I hovered my poor tucchus half an inch above the saddle.
And then there were the hills. I've heard from many different people that the hills in the northeast are far worse than those in California or Colorado just because they never stop. Out west you can climb 5,000' in 15 miles, but then the next 100 miles are pretty flat. You get it over with. Here in the northeast you go from 26 mph down to 6 in the space of a minute, and then you're back up to 26. Our hills are short, and they're steep, and they give you no sense of accomplishment. It's hard to build up momentum, you're all over your cassette, and worst of all you feel like you're not getting anywhere. I don't know which kind of climbing I prefer, but let me tell you a little story about hills while I battle my way up and down the next 50 miles or so till the next interesting thing happens:
Now I was really determined to succeed. Saturday they were predicting "scattered thunderstorms," so I decided to take my chances and try my all-day ride again. I took some Tylenol PM at 5:00 and was out like a light and dreaming about doing yoga with Mick Jagger by seven. The alarm went off at 2:00 am, and I ate just the right amount of breakfast and hit the road at 3:00.
I've done embarrassingly little night riding, but it was nice having the road to myself. It's true what they say that you go much slower in the dark. I could only see about 50 feet in front of me, and with lots of shadows lurking about it was hard to spot all the potholes. I went at a snail's pace to make sure I didn't ride through some bottomless pothole. It was a warm and sticky night, and I was already sweating by the time the sun came up.I'd already gone about 60 miles before I hit the first open store to refill my water bottles at around 7:30. It was the kind of convenience store you see in lemonade commercials and in Fannie Flagg novels with the three toothless old men sitting on the front porch stating the obvious and complaining about being old. "Getting an early start this morning?" one of the men asked me as I shoved a bottle of Gatorade under my arm. I didn't even know what time it was, it felt like mid-afternoon to me. "How far you going today?" asked another young guy who was putting out coffee pots."You don't want to know," I said. It sounds patronizing, but I've found that this is a safer answer than anything else. If I tell them the truth, then they either won't believe me, or they'll tell me to be careful. Both these things make me doubt myself. When you've got an all-day solo ride ahead of you, the last thing you need buzzing around your head for hours on end is doubt. Best not to share any information and make them keep their doubts to themselves.
Back out on the road, it was getting really hot. It was muggy from the 22 straight days of rain, and I was already sticky with sweat. I had been listening to my iPod overnight, but now that the world was starting to wake up I pulled my earphones out and just started listening to my own thoughts. Sometimes people ask me what I think about when I'm on the bike for that long. The answer is disappointing: I'm just thinking, "Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78. Turn left on Rte. 202 at mile 78..." until I get to the next turn, and then I start repeating the next direction over and over to myself. I couldn't tell you what I thought about as I rode the rest of the way up to Lake Winnipesaukee. My legs hadn't felt that great at the beginning of the ride, but around mile 70 I started to feel like myself again. The terrain was relentlessly rolling, and the pavement was pretty shitty in spots. The skin on my ass was already starting to bug me a little bit. I'm sponsored by a butt lube product, but wouldn't you know I completely forgot to grease up before I'd left the house in the morning. I still had about 170 miles to ride, and I was already feeling a bit irritable. How was this all going to work out?
I rode to the half-way point in Meredith, and when I realized that it was someone's house, and not a convenience store, I got downright PISSY. Then I realized that I was going to have to backtrack about 5 miles before going on, and I got even more grouchy. Pretty soon I hit a stretch of highway had regular frost heaves every 10 feet for about 25 miles, and I ended up whimpering and yelling at the road to lay off as I hovered my poor tucchus half an inch above the saddle.
And then there were the hills. I've heard from many different people that the hills in the northeast are far worse than those in California or Colorado just because they never stop. Out west you can climb 5,000' in 15 miles, but then the next 100 miles are pretty flat. You get it over with. Here in the northeast you go from 26 mph down to 6 in the space of a minute, and then you're back up to 26. Our hills are short, and they're steep, and they give you no sense of accomplishment. It's hard to build up momentum, you're all over your cassette, and worst of all you feel like you're not getting anywhere. I don't know which kind of climbing I prefer, but let me tell you a little story about hills while I battle my way up and down the next 50 miles or so till the next interesting thing happens:John, the world's kindest race director, who runs the Adirondack 540 RAAM qualifier told me about the year that some big shot ultracyclist came out from Wyoming for the race. "I don't think this course record has ever been challenged," he accused. "Why, your course record is 8 hours longer than the Furnace Creek 508!" Clearly, this guy thought that us east coasters are soft. It's okay, I've heard it before.
"So did he finish?" I interrupted John.
"Yeah, he finished. But you should have seen this guy stagger off his bike when he pulled into the parking lot. He was one sorry sight, and then he fell into his wife's arms and started crying."
"And did he beat the course record?" I needed to know.
"No, he missed it by about 6 hours! He didn't even win that year."
"So did he finish?" I interrupted John.
"Yeah, he finished. But you should have seen this guy stagger off his bike when he pulled into the parking lot. He was one sorry sight, and then he fell into his wife's arms and started crying."
"And did he beat the course record?" I needed to know.
"No, he missed it by about 6 hours! He didn't even win that year."
So back to me fighting my way over our tiny but painful rollers which may or may not be worse than what they have out west. I was now in towns with names like Salisbury, Amherst, and Hopkinton. When I saw their names on my cue sheet, I'd thought that they were Salisbury, Amherst, and Hopkinton, MA, but when I got there I was disappointed to find that I was still deep in New Hampshire. All morning I'd been secretly hoping for a light rainstorm to cool me off and wash off some of the grime that was stuck to my skin. Suddenly I saw something that just didn't make sense: up ahead the road was dry, and then there was a line and suddenly it was WET. When I crossed that line, the skies opened up. It wasn't raining, it wasn't pouring, it was pissing. I thought that it couldn't possibly rain any harder, and then it did.
I still had about 90 miles to go before I got home, and I'd been riding for about 180 miles. I'd never ridden more than 200 miles in my life. I thought about calling for a ride, but I had no idea where I was, and there would have been nowhere to wait for 2 hours for someone to come and get me anyway. So I just rode and rode and got wetter and wetter. It was raining too hard for me to dig sugary snacks out of the zip lock bag in my bento box, and I didn't want to take my hands off my handlebars for long enough to take a slug of water. I almost got hit twice, even though I'm sure that I was still plainly visible to drivers (had they been looking). And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it started to hail. I was looking at the granules piled at the side of the road, thinking how strange it was that they would still be salting the roads in June when it hit me that rain doesn't usually sting. Luckily the hail didn't last long, but when it gave way there was lightning. I rode like that for a couple of hours, feeling pretty miserable, wondering if I'd get hit by lightning. But actually that time passed pretty quickly. I was so busy trying to ride safely in the rain that I didn't notice the miles ticking by. All I could focus on was that there was a sunny patch right over my left shoulder, and how could it be so sunny right there and pouring where I was?
Finally I caught up with the sunny patch and the rain stopped around the Massachusetts border, somewhere around mile 225. Sixty-five miles to go back home, but I'd already decided that once I got to somewhere convenient to home, I'd have someone pick me up and drive me the last few miles. As I dried out, my spirits started to buoy again. Surprisingly, my legs were feeling really good. What was sore were my shoulders, and my butt. While my ass had been dry and rubbed raw before, now it was wet and pruny and getting rubbed even more raw. Whenever I could, I rode standing up. But still, you can't stand up all the time, and Massachusetts is worse than New Hampshire about keeping their roads in good shape, and it was pretty painful. My bike was hurting too. The rain had washed off all my lube, and it was making some horrible sounds as I pedaled and shifted.
Finally, at a little before 8:30 I arrived in Concord center, only 15 miles from home, still with a little daylight to spare. I'd be at the finish of my cue sheet in less than 5 miles, then my girlfriend could drive the last 10 miles to pick me up at the start/finish at the air force base parking lot. I called her. "You're still alive!" she said.
"I am!"
"Where are you?"
"Concord center, do you remember where that is?"
"Of course I do. Oh shit, I rode in to work today. I hope you didn't need me to pick you up or something."
"No... I guess not. I'll be fine."
I thought briefly about calling my parents to come pick me up, but I'd already had to call my dad once that week to pick me up when my jacket had wrapped 3 times around my gears under the chain on my fixed gear and I didn't have the tool to fix it. I didn't want him to think that I wasn't able to do these things all by myself. So I dug my lights back out of my pockets, lit myself up like a jack-o-lantern and headed back home.
About 3 miles from the house, there's this one brief climb that's just steep enough to be a pain in the ass. You climb about 200 feet at a grade that's just steep enough that you can only climb it in the big ring on a really good day. Even though I'd climbed much worse all day, I had been dreading that hill since the depths of New Hampshire because I knew it was going to be the last push, and that it was going to hurt like hell. But when I hit that hill, it didn't feel any worse than it did on any other day. I guess it's true that nothing changes after 200 miles. I'd hardly eaten or drunk anything in the last 4 hours, but I felt okay. I finished stiff and tired, but still in control of all my bodily functions. I rolled into my driveway exactly 19 hours after leaving, having ridden 275 miles, and climbed 15,000 feet.
Ever since that ride, I've been one hurt unit. The skin on my butt is raw and irritated. I've been sleeping over eight hours a night and still feeling like I need more. There are knots in my shoulders and feet the size of basketballs. My triceps are sore and weak. And my legs? They feel fine. What the hell is that?! Now the only thing I have left to do is rest up and recover for the 24-hour race in a week and a half! The goal: 440 miles in 24 hours!
I still had about 90 miles to go before I got home, and I'd been riding for about 180 miles. I'd never ridden more than 200 miles in my life. I thought about calling for a ride, but I had no idea where I was, and there would have been nowhere to wait for 2 hours for someone to come and get me anyway. So I just rode and rode and got wetter and wetter. It was raining too hard for me to dig sugary snacks out of the zip lock bag in my bento box, and I didn't want to take my hands off my handlebars for long enough to take a slug of water. I almost got hit twice, even though I'm sure that I was still plainly visible to drivers (had they been looking). And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it started to hail. I was looking at the granules piled at the side of the road, thinking how strange it was that they would still be salting the roads in June when it hit me that rain doesn't usually sting. Luckily the hail didn't last long, but when it gave way there was lightning. I rode like that for a couple of hours, feeling pretty miserable, wondering if I'd get hit by lightning. But actually that time passed pretty quickly. I was so busy trying to ride safely in the rain that I didn't notice the miles ticking by. All I could focus on was that there was a sunny patch right over my left shoulder, and how could it be so sunny right there and pouring where I was?Finally I caught up with the sunny patch and the rain stopped around the Massachusetts border, somewhere around mile 225. Sixty-five miles to go back home, but I'd already decided that once I got to somewhere convenient to home, I'd have someone pick me up and drive me the last few miles. As I dried out, my spirits started to buoy again. Surprisingly, my legs were feeling really good. What was sore were my shoulders, and my butt. While my ass had been dry and rubbed raw before, now it was wet and pruny and getting rubbed even more raw. Whenever I could, I rode standing up. But still, you can't stand up all the time, and Massachusetts is worse than New Hampshire about keeping their roads in good shape, and it was pretty painful. My bike was hurting too. The rain had washed off all my lube, and it was making some horrible sounds as I pedaled and shifted.
Finally, at a little before 8:30 I arrived in Concord center, only 15 miles from home, still with a little daylight to spare. I'd be at the finish of my cue sheet in less than 5 miles, then my girlfriend could drive the last 10 miles to pick me up at the start/finish at the air force base parking lot. I called her. "You're still alive!" she said.
"I am!"
"Where are you?"
"Concord center, do you remember where that is?"
"Of course I do. Oh shit, I rode in to work today. I hope you didn't need me to pick you up or something."
"No... I guess not. I'll be fine."
I thought briefly about calling my parents to come pick me up, but I'd already had to call my dad once that week to pick me up when my jacket had wrapped 3 times around my gears under the chain on my fixed gear and I didn't have the tool to fix it. I didn't want him to think that I wasn't able to do these things all by myself. So I dug my lights back out of my pockets, lit myself up like a jack-o-lantern and headed back home.About 3 miles from the house, there's this one brief climb that's just steep enough to be a pain in the ass. You climb about 200 feet at a grade that's just steep enough that you can only climb it in the big ring on a really good day. Even though I'd climbed much worse all day, I had been dreading that hill since the depths of New Hampshire because I knew it was going to be the last push, and that it was going to hurt like hell. But when I hit that hill, it didn't feel any worse than it did on any other day. I guess it's true that nothing changes after 200 miles. I'd hardly eaten or drunk anything in the last 4 hours, but I felt okay. I finished stiff and tired, but still in control of all my bodily functions. I rolled into my driveway exactly 19 hours after leaving, having ridden 275 miles, and climbed 15,000 feet.
Ever since that ride, I've been one hurt unit. The skin on my butt is raw and irritated. I've been sleeping over eight hours a night and still feeling like I need more. There are knots in my shoulders and feet the size of basketballs. My triceps are sore and weak. And my legs? They feel fine. What the hell is that?! Now the only thing I have left to do is rest up and recover for the 24-hour race in a week and a half! The goal: 440 miles in 24 hours!