We're in... Ohio?

*** Update *** The Wednesday after the race I took my bike to the Wednesday night time trial, ready to ride. I gave my rear wheel a spin and it stopped spinning almost immediately, as if the brakes were rubbing. But the brakes weren't rubbing, nor was the wheel rubbing on the frame. After checking in with some bike geeks, and some troubleshooting on the phone with Grease Monkey we figured out that there was no quick fix. The bearings in my rear wheel are shot, and apparently they've been that way for a long time. Turns out that at this race and probably every race I've done this year, I've been riding like the brakes were on without knowing it. This makes me mad, but not really for the reasons you would expect. I've been satisfied with my races this season, and I've been at peace with the "what if's?". Now I'm wondering how much my wheel slowed me down, and if it would have meant something different in each one of my races so far this season. Damn... I really need to learn to be more observant about my bike.

"You know you need your instrument,

"But does your instrument need to be mic'ed?"
-Ani Difranco, "Here for Now"

I don't really remember how the whole thing got started and who put whom up to it, but at some point I agreed to do a 12-hour bike race in Ohio with Judi. When I packed my shit in the car to drive all the way out to Columbus, I was really looking forward to the race (the first race in awhile I've been looking forward to). And it wasn't just because I was going to get to meet Judi face-to-face for the first time. I needed the 14-hour drive (in each direction) to think, and the 12-hour ride to sort some of my thoughts out. I was also really looking forward to jumping head-first into something that was way over my head. I hadn't tested my endurance and mental strength in a very long time.

Yes, I've done some pretty epic rides in the past, but I haven't ridden anything longer than 4 hours in six months. Twelve straight hours in the saddle was definitely over my head. Adding to the adventure, I had only put my aero bars on for the first time in six months right before leaving Boston. So much for training as you race. I rode the bike to work on Thursday to make sure that everything was in its proper place, and it turns out that my saddle was about an inch too high. Being the bright bulb I am, I didn't bring a multi-tool with me, and had to ride like that for 18 miles round-trip. I hoped that the adjustments I made in the parking lot at race registration would be good enough. I mean, riding around for 30 seconds is a pretty accurate depiction of what'll happen after 12 hours in the saddle, right? After the race Judi's boyfriend Dominic would tell me, "I don't know how you could ride at all with your saddle that crooked. My junk would've been all messed up."
"My saddle's crooked?" I said. Yep, that's me. If they used to call Lance "Mister Millimeter" for being so picky about his bike set-up, then you can call me "Miss Meter," meaning "as long as it's within a meter, then I probably won't know the difference."

The woman in front of me in line at registration was about 150 pounds overweight, and when they asked her if she was doing the 12-hour or the fun ride she said, "No way, I'm just doing the fun ride! I take my meds!" This last part cracked her up. She seemed to be thinking, Hardy-har-har, 'I take my meds!' Isn't that funny? Because all you people are crazy who do the 12-hour race. Lunatics! Harharhar. Meds. Ha. You crazy fuckers. No one around her seemed amused though, so she said her brilliant joke again. "No, I'm not doing the 12-hour! I take my meds." Still no response. The race volunteer cut through the awkward silence and started explaining the course to her, pointing out where she could take a short cut since she wasn't doing the 12 hour race. "NO! I'm definitely not doing the 12-hour race... because I take my meds every day!" she tried again. I wanted to point out that A) everyone had heard her the first two times, B) most populations don't take kindly to people calling them maniacs for doing what they love, C) getting in shape to do 12 hours of exercise might do a big girl like her some good, and D) she should get her fat ass out of my way. The next day I did notice that the well-medicated fun rider was at the race, but her meds also apparently kept her from riding in the rain. Apparently the difference between people who can make their dreams happen and those who wind up being unfunny fatass couch potatoes is that effective people "don't take their meds."

Judi showed up about an hour later with the famous Dominic and began describing how nervous she was. I didn't know what to say. I mean, in a 12-hour race you can ride 2 miles, or you can ride 300. It's the only race that you can quit when the going gets tough and not DNF. I didn't much care HOW far I got tomorrow, and fully recognized that I might quit before 100 miles if things weren't going well. I had no intention of gutting through this race on willpower alone, just in case burnout really is the reason I haven't been loving my bike lately. I did my best to reassure Judi as we grabbed some pizza, then it was time to go to our respective hotels and get some sleep.

The weather forecast was looking pretty ominous. The weather channel app showed an angry grey cloud with a thunderbolt hanging out of it next to every line on the hourly forecast starting at the same time as the race. When I opened my hotel door at 6 am, there was a giant flash. The area that the hotel was in reminded me of East LA, and for a second I wondered if it had been a gunshot before a big, fat rain drop fell on my head and I figured out what was going on. Left: They made us wear mirrors. The mirror that I attached to my sperm hat had fallen off by half way through the race.

At the start, the rain was unenthusiastic. While Judi had been so nervous that she ralphed up all her breakfast on the way to the race, I was pretty lackadaisical about the whole thing. Meh, I'll just start pedaling and keep pedaling until I don't want to anymore, I thought. The rain wasn't boding well for my waning motivation. I took my time finishing my coffee and rocking up to the start, even though this was a draft-legal race, and therefore it would have behooved me to move closer to the front pack. I only muscled my way half way through the crowd that had already formed at the start, and Judi and I settled down next to an HPV (human-powered vehicle: with all kinds of aerodynamic accessories to reach the fastest speeds recorded by any non-motorized vehicle) that looked like a penis in a giant yellow condom. And I thought that I was a dork in my sperm hat!

I'm the one in the blue coat in the background. You can tell it wasn't a pretty morning.

Once the race started, I did my best to catch up with the lead pack, but where I'd seeded myself at the start made that pretty much impossible. Instead, I settled into the second or third chase pack and tried to figure out the best way to draft with aero bars in the rain. Almost as soon as we started riding, the skies opened up, my glasses clouded over, my socks got sopping wet, and life got miserable. It was damned windy out there, and every time I let the gap grow to more than about an arm's length, it became a huge effort to catch back on. As the second hour was approaching without my having a chance to eat anything and barely drinking a drop, I decided that group be damned, I had to eat. I dropped back as I shoved a bar in my mouth and tried to catch back on to the pack that was moving along at 20 mph. It took me a good 10 minutes to whittle the gap down to nothing again, and I realized that I couldn't keep this 20 mph pace up for the rest of the race. When we got back to the start/finish area after 50 miles, I hopped off my bike to grab more bars and liquids and decided to ride my own race.

"C'mon blue!" yelled someone as they rode by me standing ass-up over my cooler. Yeah, whatever. Fuck off, I thought as I mounted my bike and checked over my shoulder to make sure that I really was alone. Within a couple of miles, I found myself riding with a guy on a fixie, and like a snowball rolling down a hill we picked up more and more riders until we'd formed a group of about six. The wind had picked up to about 10 mph (if you trust the weather report) or 20 mph (more likely), and the whole course was exposed. The crosswind blowing through my spokes was making a maddening low whistling sound that was practically driving me to tears, and the headwind wouldn't let us break 15 mph.

It would have been wise to ride in a paceline with the guys, but they all had the worst bike handling skills I'd ever seen. They were weaving all over the road and had no idea how to behave in a pack. At one point they formed a beautiful five-man echelon (the most efficient formation for a crosswind) clear across the road, leaving me trailing behind and fighting the wind by myself. No one was trading pulls, and I was starting to get cranky and was afraid that I was going to tear these guys a new asshole if I rode with them much longer. When we got to the far check point at about mile 77, I let the zig-zag boys ride on while I got off to refill my water bottles. I would continue to run into these same guys throughout the race, and it often took more effort not to ride with them, but it was well worth the extra pushing to get rid of them.

RAAM veteran Terry and I ride through the crappy, crappy rain. I'm hidden behind the big guy in the back. He couldn't handle his bike worth a damn, and he was the main reason I wound up riding alone after mile 75.

Now that I was by myself, I could set my mind to more important matters. I had to pee. I knew that since I was soaked, if I stopped for too long I would get cold and it would be impossible to warm up again, so I figured I'd just pee all over myself on the bike. Hey, I was already wet. One problem though: the course was completely flat. It's next to impossible to pee on the bike while you're pedaling. It took me thirteen miles of pushing so hard on my innards that it made me burp to finally find a downhill where I could let loose. Pee ran through my shorts, down my legs, over my seat and onto my wheel, which flicked drops of pee every which way. Not a minute later, two guys came up behind me when I hadn't seen a soul in half an hour. To make it worse, I noticed for the first time that it had stopped raining. Oops! It never did rain again to wash all the pee off of me, and I wonder if that had something to do with the giant boil that has formed in my crotch since the race.

When I finished the second loop I had 100 miles behind me, and set out for my last loop of the long course by myself. By the time I got back the 7-mile short loop would be open, and I was
hoping it would be more sheltered in town. I told myself, Just 27 miles into the wind to the far point on the loop, then the next 23 miles are free into the tailwind. So I battled through the headwind by myself until I caught a tailwind about 7 miles early. I didn't let myself think about what that meant until I had already turned around and my tailwind was gone. The wind had turned! Fuuuuuuuck! At the halfway checkpoint I asked how many women had come through on their third loop.
"There were three women who were riding together, but the last time they came through they'd lost one of their riders."
"And they were on their third loop?" I asked.
"I think so."
So I wasn't winning... maybe. Damn! Oh well. I still had my tailwind (that would never be) to look forward to, so my spirits were high.


Finally through the crosswind that was not a tailwind, I rode through the start/finish area and headed right out for the first of several 7-mile loops. I couldn't wait to see what this short, sheltered loop would look like; Not sheltered at all, as it turned out. The winds felt stronger on the short loop than they had on the long loop, although the cycles of highs and lows were shorter. On my second loop I easily passed a girl who looked strong enough to have maybe been ahead of me this whole time (turns out she'd take second to me in my age group). Then I caught up to the guy on the fixie. "Go blue!" he said. He had such a southern twang that he managed to make these two words last for about 10 syllables. I hunkered in next to him for a chat.
"So is that fixed or single speed?" I asked.
"This one here," (this 'un hey-yere) "she's fixed" (she's fi-ixed). I asked him where he was from (Noahth Car'laahna), and how long it took him to get here. "About eight hours. Normally I ride, but this time I drove." So he was one of those super anti-social randonneurs. Clearly he didn't take his meds. I noticed that his helmet was held on with climbing rope rather than regular flat straps. "Oh you have no idea how anti-social I am!" he said. "You ever think of doing the grand-daddy of 'em all?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"RAAM." It wasn't till long after I'd told him that I was going to be there as part of a crew this year, and then finally asked him whether he'd ever done it that he revealed his experience. "What? You mean crewing? Yeah. I done that a coupla times."
"No, I mean ride it."
"Yep. I done that a coupla times too. Everybody at RAAM's got a Droppin' Terry story."
I looked at him. "How many times have you done it?"
"I done four, but I only finished three. And I come in third 'mercan each time," he recalled, thinking about it. "I'm trying this race to see if I want to do it this year on a fixie."
"They're sure going to tell good stories at your funeral," I said. I was impressed not only that he had finished RAAM so many times, but that it had taken him so long to boast about it. As I've said before, the people who deserve to brag are the ones that never do.

"You're in the lead," Terry told me.
"I thought there were 2 women ahead of me?"
"Not anymore they ain't," he said with such certainty that I believed him.

RAAM Veteran Terry drafting off of me.

I lost Terry as we turned out of the wind and I could use my bigger gears to my advantage. For the rest of the race, my mind had turned to mush. I couldn't remember where I was, in Ohio, or Mississippi, or maybe upstate New York, or perhaps the moon. I couldn't remember what the long loop looked like, or even how many of the short loop I'd done. My head hurt and I'd felt like I could fall asleep at any second for hours. I knew I was dehydrated, but it was so late that I could never catch up, so I just kept drinking at the same rate. Time stretched out, and it took me forever and ever to hit 200 miles. I knew that if I really stepped on it, I could set a PR and break my 12-hour record of 220 miles, but I didn't care enough to push it.

When I was talking to Terry about RAAM, I checked in with myself. Did I want to do RAAM? Did I want to do things like ride to Ohio on my bike, just to ride my bike for 12 more hours and ride home? My neck hurt already, and although I wasn't making excuses to get off my bike, I still wanted the 12 hours to be over. Did I want to do RAAM? No, I didn't think so. I didn't want to be one of those "anti-social" crazy people, I kind of wanted to know what it felt like to be one of those people who "took her meds." I wanted to fit in again. I kind of wanted to stop making sacrifices for a little while. Even the fact that I was winning didn't give me much of a thrill or a drive to keep going. I forbade myself from getting off my bike unless it was absolutely necessary to refill on fuel or fluids, but the spark was gone. I was satisfied with where I was and didn't really feel like pushing harder. What I really wanted was to have someone waiting for me at the finish line, someone to give me a massage on clean hotel sheets after the race. I know I need to keep active to keep myself from going crazy, but do I really need to be doing these crazy competitions and beating other girls to be satisfied with myself? The answer I kept coming up with was, Not so much anymore.

I set out for what would be my final loop with less than 15 minutes to go. There would be a volunteer waiting at every mile marker to tell us when the race was over. The Grim Reepers (as I dubbed them) were already out on the course, calling out time checks as we rolled by. "You can fit in 3 more miles!" someone yelled at the start/finish area. "10 minutes to go!" one yelled at mile 1. "You've got about 6 minutes!" yelled the next.
I turned out of the headwind and rode like hell for the next Grim Reeper. He didn't stop the guy riding in front of me, so I yelled out, "TIME CHECK?!" as I rolled by.
"Three minutes!" he yelled. "Go for it!"
Three minutes meant that I would have to average 20 mph with a crosswind and up a slight incline over the next mile (plus a bit of a downhill to the mile marker at the end). I started hauling ass, and pulled in to the last mile marker with seconds to spare, gasping and coughing. According to my GPS I'd gone 216.6 miles. They rounded it up to 218.5. If I had just squeezed a little more, I could have pulled out that last 3.5 miles I needed for a PR. Oh well.

All in all I counted the race as a success. Not only had I won by about 13 miles over the next woman, I'd also spent about an hour more on the bike than I had in last year's race and had gutted it out in way tougher conditions. In 12 hours I had been off the bike for less than 15 minutes. My neck, shoulders, back and feet hurt, but my legs and contact points felt fine. Although I didn't want to, I could have kept riding.


They made us wait forever for the awards, and right after getting our medals (Judi got third in her AG), we had to jet back to Cincinati, about 2 hours away.

The next day I felt completely hung over. My head hurt like hell, and I felt like I could fall asleep at any moment. I had that heavy hangover feeling in my body like my veins had been filled with concrete, and I could barely muster the energy to participate in conversations... which I felt horrible about because I really wanted to prove to Judi and Dominic that I was a fun and interesting person. "You're not at all what I expected you to be like," Judi had told me on the night we first met. "I was expecting you to be all chipper and 'rah, rah, rah!' You're actually really chill and laid back." I get that a lot.

I've felt awful after races before with stomach upset, sore muscles and screaming sun burns, but I'd never felt like I'd downed a bottle of cheap vodka and a case of Red Bulls. It was probably the combination of not drinking enough, not drinking enough electrolytes (I foolishly went for water throughout the day) and tripling my season-to-date maximum volume. Instead of me being a fun and interesting person to entertain my hosts, we spent the rest of the day draped in dogs and watching movies on cable.


On the 14-hour drive home, I ran out of audiobooks to listen to and finally had the time to sort through my thoughts through Pennsylvainia and New York. By Connecticut I felt like I had most of it figured out. In the darkest corners of my brain, I still couldn't find my bloodthirsty competitive instinct. The thoughts that were firing me up were off the bike. I missed going out into the woods by myself or with the dog and dancing over rocks and roots. I yearned for a feeling of accomplishment from a job, not a race. Then "Here for Now" (the song quoted above) came on my iPod. "You know you need your instrument" (in this case, my bike), "but does your instrument need to be mic'ed?" Do I really need to figure into some national rankings to feel a sense of accomplishment? I do need to be active and constantly challenging myself, but do I really need trophies and upgrade points to be fulfilled? Lately the most satisfying victories are the ones that receive no recognition: not quitting in the face of tough conditions, being able to dig deep in order to push my body beyond its own limits (even if they didn't look like limits on paper), and just finding that rare and unexpected workout that makes me feel like life is better because of it.

Really, I'm Sure

A Heartbreaking Tale of Gut-wrenching Disappointment:

That's what I already had this post named in my head while I was still riding in the race. In fact, the title popped into my head only about an hour into the 24-hour race. This gives you an idea of what sort of frame of mind I was in to start the day, while I was still fresh. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, a warning: some feelings may inevitably get hurt as I write this post, or people might want to get defensive. I will be talking about other bloggers (all of whom shall remain anonymous), and people who are very, very good friends of mine. I would like to stress that no guilt tripping is intended, and no harm is meant by anything that I choose to share. These people are great friends to me, and I in no way put responsibility for a shitty day on anyone but my own mindset. I simply cannot explain why I had such a bad day without also explaining some of the disappointments leading up to the race - disappointments involving other people. I'm also going to get a bit mushy in parts of this post. I apologize in advance if I make anyone vomit. Still, it may be wise to keep a puke bag around.

As most of you know, I put this race in my crosshairs back in early winter, planning to break the 24-hour record by riding over 440 miles in 24 hours. I began talking to a prospective support team and assembling a crew. Selecting a crew is no easy task. I wanted to find people who I could trust to make good decisions, be attentive, and most importantly, know what to say to me at just the right time. They would have to be thick-skinned. They would have to pick up on non-verbal cues and be another set of eyes to tell me what I needed when I didn't know it myself. They would need to know what it's like to push yourself to extreme limits. And there had to be no way that they were going to piss me off. I talked to three people and one alternate, and was pretty sure I was set and ready to go by March. All I had to do was the training.

And then something happened. I fell in love. Okay, well it's not like love at first sight or anything, cupid's arrows, googley eyes, and hearts bubbling out of my head. I just met someone, and life isn't ALL about training. Ultradistance anything is a pretty antisocial thing to do, and suddenly I had a damned good reason to get off my bike. Maybe my eating suffered a bit too. And... well, all my training. But I was happy. I was even happy despite races rolling around without my being very ready for them.

Then something else happened. I sent out an email to my carefully-selected crew (plus one alternate) one month before the race, saying that it was time for me to start getting my shit together. They'd all made other plans. I guess maybe I hadn't actually shared the date with them, or emphasized it enough. I'll admit, I had fallen off the face of the earth since falling in love (cue: vomit!). I started going through all my friends one by one trying to replace my first crew and piece together people I at least trusted not to piss me off or run me over. Then I started going through acquaintances. I even offered to fly one person in from far away. Everyone was very sorry they couldn't help, but in mid-July everyone has weekend plans. With every phone call I made, and every "sorry, I cant," I started to expect less and less from this race. For a minute it looked like Grease Monkey's best work friend was going to be able to do come out with us, but then their asshole boss wouldn't give both the day off at once. And even Grease Monkey could only get one day off, so we were going to have to drive down the night before... after her shift, cutting it awfully close on sleep time.

I was also worried about Grease Monkey. There are people who are good on sleep deprivation, but she's not one of them. I worried that she would get a migraine, or that she'd fall asleep at the wheel, or that she'd get bored out of her skull and decide she didn't want to be with anyone with such antisocial tendencies as this ultracycling business.

The week before the race I went to visit some friends in DC for the first part of the week. When I got back,I had 2 days to arrange everything as best as possible to make it as easy as possible for my "crew": Grease Monkey and her dog. I kept meaning to sleep in, or take a nap, or do some yoga, but I just never got around to it. I also kept meaning to eat lunch, but I never got around to that either in the 5 days before the race. A little tired and hungry, but with everything finished satisfactorily I brought the dog into the bike shop: the final chore so that we could leave for New York right when Grease Monkey's shift ended. If we made good time, we could still be in bed by 10, in time to get 7.5 hours' sleep.

I went up to the workshop to pick up the other half of my "crew" at 5:15. Grease Monkey took one look at the dog and said, "Shit! Why is one pupil bigger than the other?! How long has she been like that???" What? No! This can't be! I looked at the dog. It was true. One pupil was huge while the other was little more than a pinprick. And come to think of it, hadn't she been a bit lethargic the last few days? How else could we explain her losing interest in the ball this afternoon? And Grease Monkey HAD slammed into her ass with a mountain bike yesterday morning. What if it was head trauma? "I've got to take her to the emergency room!" Grease Monkey said, already on her cell phone and grabbing her car keys. I nodded and walked out the door.

I walked straight out the shop, hoping I could get to the parking lot before I started crying. Why is it that whenever you want to be alone that's when everyone wants to follow you? As I walked out the door, the pervy roommate was in the parking lot, just coming in for his shift. He yelled something inappropriate about licking pussy at me and I gave him the finger and kept walking. When I hit the next parking lot I started crying and kept walking. When I finally thought I'd found a private place behind some dumpsters, the pervy roommate's girlfriend and my best bike mechanic caught up to me at the same time. I screamed at both of them to leave me the fuck alone. I just needed a minute to sort it all out.

I'd spent all that money. I'd done all that training (alright, not as much as I'd planned, but still). I'd done everything in my power to get a crew together for this race, and now everything was STILL falling apart. It wasn't the dog's fault. It wasn't Grease Monkey's fault. It wasn't my friends' fault. It JUST WASN'T FAIR! I thought about going alone, but she loves that dog so much that if there was anything wrong, I couldn't with a clear conscience leave her. Because I am in love after all (cue: barf!). And there was no way I was making her leave the dog at the vet for the weekend, even though she'd said she would. I just needed to figure out how to tell her that I wasn't racing without busting out crying. I knew it was what had to be done, and I knew that she'd never let me drop out if she saw me crying. And anyway, all my stuff was in her truck speeding towards the animal hospital at this very minute as I sat feeling sorry for myself behind the dumpsters. I couldn't leave without her, she had my bike.

Finally I pulled myself together, grabbed the stuff that she'd left at the shop, was rude to all my friends on the way out, and sped towards the animal hospital myself. At the animal hospital the previous girlfriend (who had given Grease Monkey the dog) showed up, and I had to meet her for the first time with puffy eyes and the headache that comes after crying. In the end the vet said that although they couldn't figure out what was wrong, they could rule out any serious conditions and we were free to take the dog home. "But bring her back in or call us if she gets any worse, or doesn't seem to get better," she said. Death sentence to your race, I heard. Finally it was decided not to leave the dog with the ex because she didn't have time to keep a constant eye on her, and we took the dog with us. "Come on, there are vets in New York," Grease Monkey insisted. "I am NOT going to get in the way of your race." I gave in, and 2 hours later than expected we piled into the car with both of our heads pounding from emotion and the despondent dog in the back seat. The whole ride down I knew I should be drinking water, but decided that minimizing bathroom breaks was paramount, so didn't drink despite my headache. And I hardly ate dinner as well, since that would have been another stop.

Are you SURE you're ready?

We managed to squeeze in about 5 and a half hours' sleep before we couldn't put off waking up any longer and rushed out the door. While Grease Monkey was in Starbucks, I gave the dog her eye drops. A minute later she started smacking her lips in that way animals do when they're about to puke. Then she started foaming at the mouth. I stood there helplessly on the sidewalk in Saratoga Springs in my bike kit, staring at this dog foaming at the mouth with one GIGANTIC pupil and one tiny pupil. I wanted to cry again. Why was the whole world against me??? Now Grease Monkey was going to whisk her off to the vet, and was it best for me to put on a happy face and go to the vet, or put on a happy face and do the race unsupported? "Is she alright?" Grease Monkey asked, coming out of Starbucks.
"I don't know," I said helplessly. Finally Grease Monkey suggested that maybe it was the medicine, and insisted on bringing me to the race. "I'll check the side effects on the medicine when I get there. If I need to go to the vet, I'll let you know and I'll leave drop bags along the course until I get back." I didn't even know what I wanted anymore. I was already so tired from the ordeal of getting here that I didn't even want to ride my bike anymore.

Lap 1 (Miles 0-32)

And that's how I found myself riding in this race that I had been looking forward to all year that I wasn't even sure I was supposed to be doing anymore, planning to call it "A Heartbreaking Tale of Gut-Wrenching Disappointment." My legs weren't feeling that great, and I had all but checked out of the race. There was a chick with a pink helmet, and I decided to mark her for conquering. I passed her in the first quarter mile. Now what?

I didn't see Grease Monkey in the whole first 32-mile lap, and I was terrified that she'd gone to the vet without telling me. I was afraid that she would have to spend the whole day attending to the dog, and that I would be out here alone, thinking about the dog rather than my race. What I did see, though, were cows, and goats, and sheep. After seeing one flock of sheep I had "Baa-baa Black Sheep" stuck in my head for the next 7 hours. Despite my rotten mood and rotten legs, I managed to hold 21 mph for the first half of the lap, which dropped down to 20 mph by the end of the lap on the uphill, upwind side of the course.

Lap 2 (Miles 33-64)

Much to my relief, Grease Monkey was parked at the start and I gave her a great, big smile as I rode by. Soon she pulled up next to me with the dog hanging her wall-eyed face out the window and asked if I needed anything. I asked for an Accelerade and an ice water with some Nuun, and she rode up next to me about 2 minutes later, holding a bottle out the window. It took us a minute to figure out how each of us would handle the hand-off, adjusting speed and switching bottles from cages to mouth to hand to hand to mouth to cages. She asked if I needed anything else, and then sped away. It wasn't until the next lap that I was able to ask about the dog and whether she was staying.

My legs still felt crappy and it was getting hot. It was humid, humid, humid, but only in the mid-70's. The problem was that we hadn't had a sunny day over 70 since April, or not one that I could remember anyway. Still, despite the fact that my legs felt like someone else's, I was feeling pretty good. Again I was flying for the first half of the lap, but then dropped to 19 by the end of the wind and the hills.

Lap 3 (Miles 65-96)

I had planned to only get off the bike every 4 hours, and the 4 hour mark hadn't passed yet, so I set out on my third lap still without having stepped off my bike. As I was heading out I saw pink helmet girl coming in. I looked down at my watch: I was over 3 miles into the lap. That meant that I was 6 miles ahead of her in only 60 miles!!! When Grease Monkey caught up with me again I told her the good news.

If this pose doesn't say "I love fisting!", then it must say "I'm going to beat yo' ass to a bloody pulp!"

On the back half of the loop I met up with a guy with an aero helmet and disc wheels. "You're doing pretty good," he congratulated me. "My coach is the reigning women's champion of this race and she's about 7 miles back on me."
"Yeah, well we have a long night ahead of us," I said. "We'll see how it all shakes out." I was already starting to feel a bit sick and my feet were a little sore. My legs were finally coming around though. As is my style, it was taking me 70 miles to really feel right in my legs. Then suddenly Aero Man got a flat, and I rode on alone. The wind for the last 8 miles was really starting to pick up now, and I was beginning to see average lap speeds that I wasn't planning to see until late afternoon. I finished the third lap with an average speed of 18.6 mph - one tenth of a mile per hour lower than I would need to average to hit my goal.

I had now been riding for about 5 hours, and hopped off the bike for a quick pee break. I had expected to meet my "crew" at the start/finish area, but Grease Monkey was nowhere to be seen, so I filled up a bottle with water and hit the road again, after only about 4 minutes off the bike.

Lap 4 (Miles 97-128)

What I didn't realize was that Grease Monkey had been told that she wasn't allowed at any of the rest stops or anywhere on the course with the dog. It didn't matter that residents along the course had dogs... off leash. Grease Monkey had to keep the dog in the vehicle at all times. So when I came around the corner out of the aid station, there she was again, offering me a sandwich. "I don't feel so great," I told her. "Solid food's not going down so well, and I feel like if I eat anything sugary I'm going to puke. Can I have a Red Bull and a ginger ale?"
"Do we have Red Bull and ginger ale?"
"Nope..." She started to drive away to the nearest convenience store. "HEY!" I yelled after her. "How's the dog?!" The dog was fine. The vet had called and said that all her tests came back normal, so she just LOOKED like a crazy dog. That was a relief, all that stress for nothing. Then Grease Monkey drove to the convenience store and was back in 10 minutes with my order. Wow, she really does love me, I thought, getting a little choked up. I was already a bit emotional from the ride, but my crew was doing a fantastic job, despite the conditions.

I hit the 100 mile mark in about 5 hours and 15 minutes, and was holding a pretty good pace despite feeling like crap. On the first part of the back half I was able to hold my own against the wind, but once I hit roughly the 24-mile mark the wind was unreasonable. I was traveling on what seemed to be flat ground, going about 14 mph. Still, I hadn't slowed down from my last lap and I managed to hold 18.6 mph for the lap. If the wind stopped blowing right this very second, I might still be able to make my goal. I rolled through the start/finish area at the end of the lap without stopping again.

Lap 5 (Miles 129-160)

"Where have you been?" Grease Monkey asked as she pulled along side me again.
"It's SO windy on that back half!" I whined. "It just takes away all the speed you've built up through the whole lap!"
I refused solid foods again, and asked for drinks without calories this time too. Rather than eating handfuls of gum drops and Sweedish Fish, I was only getting down one piece of candy when my watch beeped every 20 minutes. Grease Monkey offered me a gel with caffeine, and I thought I'd vomit just at the thought of the sticky, jizzy stuff in my mouth.

On the back half the wind was getting really strong now. The last 8 miles seemed to take just as long as the first 24, and twice as much effort. Tree trunks were bending from the force of it. I knew that there was no way that I could hit 440 miles in the 24 hours, so I tried to re-evaluate my goals. The course record was only 413 miles, still very doable. If I went over 400 miles I could appeal to qualify for RAAM. And if those didn't work, I could still just go for the win.

I was now just past the 8-hour mark, and although I had planned to go 4 hours from my last break, I decided that averaging a break every 4 hours was okay too. I had only averaged 17.6 mph on this past lap, and I was thinking about dropping out already. "You're doing great! You could win it overall," the volunteer writing down splits told me. "You're in second overall. You're only 7 minutes down on the lead guy."
"Oh I am, huh?" I asked. As excited as that information would have made me normally, I just couldn't care less today. "That's nice. I'm going to go lie down for a little while."


And that's what I did. I rode around the corner, found my lovely crew, and stuck my feet up in the air. This was the turning point in my race. I lay in the grass and ate a boiled potato, then a banana. I chatted with Grease Monkey. "You're doing an awesome job," I told her. "You're hired. I couldn't have hoped for a better crew!" Finally after 25 minutes I was ready to get on my bike again. Now that I'd made sure that 440 was completely out of my reach, there was no real hurry.
"How many miles have you done?" Grease Monkey asked. "You're only about half an hour past the time goals that you put on your sheet."
"Yeah, throw that sheet out," I said. "I don't want to hear about it again."

Lap 6 (Miles 161-192)

I felt much better after my break and decided that under the conditions I was just going to have to do whatever I could to maximize my on-the-bike time while still maximizing my comfort. I stopped pushing, and I was feeling pretty good. At the far checkpoint I called out my number and rolled through, and Kathy, who was holding her log sheets to her chest against the wind yelled after me, "IT'S GOING TO RAIN ANY MINUTE!"
"THANK YOU!" I yelled, and picked up the pace. Maybe I could get back to the start/finish area before the skies opened up.

I only made it another few miles before the rain caught me, several minutes before Grease Monkey caught me. I stopped for a few minutes as we dug out a raincoat, a reflective vest, some lights, and my clear glasses. Stopping, stopping, stopping. Always stopping. What's the point?! I thought. If I'm going to spend half the race off my bike, is this even racing? "Do you need anything else?" Grease Monkey asked me. "I'm getting a bit loopy, I think I need a nap."
"I'm fine. You get all the sleep you need," I said. "I'll call you if I need you." I could tell that she was pushing herself really hard. The last time I saw her push herself this hard into exhaustion, she got a migraine. When I rode into town about half an hour later, I saw her parked at the side of the road with her eyes closed, but then when I rode by again in the other direction about half an hour later, she was awake again.

Lap 7 (Miles 193-224)

I rode through the start/finish area and back out for my next lap. I was way ahead of my pace from last year, and I wanted to see just how far I could go in 12 hours. When I rode by Grease Monkey again, she came and asked me if I needed anything. We stopped again to put the sleeves on my rain jacket and adjust some of the lights I was using. "I'm going to ride hard until 8:00, then I'm going to stop and have dinner with you," I told her. "Why don't you go pick up something you want for dinner, and then drive the course backwards until you find me. OH! And can I have a hot coffee?!" I asked.

Then I went out and rode like hell. I caught up to the girl in the pink helmet and passed her quickly. She was dressed like a hobo with a huge windbreaker billowing in the wind. "How are you doing?" I asked.
"Alright, how are you?"
"I'm pleased as punch that the wind seems to have died down now that it's started raining," I said. I slowed down so that I could talk to her a bit and get her story. Hopefully I could find out how far ahead I was. "Are you doing the 24-hour?"
"Yep, how about you?"
"Yep."
"Is it your first one?" she asked, a little patronizingly it seemed.
"Yeah, I've never ridden more than 19 hours. I'm just not feeling that great today. I don't know how it's all going to go." Note: I said TODAY. I never once doubted I could ride 24 hours on a day that my mind wasn't everywhere BUT on my bike.
"Well you just go as far as you can then," she consoled me. "And I hope you have good lights."
Yeah thanks, Einstein, I thought and decided that she was no fun to talk to, so I rode away. Looking back, I'm not even sure she realized she was being lapped. Dumb broad.

I rode another 8 miles or so, and had just one minute to go before the twelve hour mark. Suddenly, the railroad gates went down in front of me, and the world's longest, slowest cargo train started chugging through. I watched as 8:00 came and went, and the train was still going by. Three and a half minutes later, the dozens and dozens of cargo cars had finally gone by and the gates lifted. I heard a honk behind me, it was Grease Monkey with the food. We fiddled with my bike some more, made some food, and were just settling down into the car to have dinner when Pink Helmet rode by. I was frustrated! Now she might think that she was faster than me or something, just because she'd passed me. Never mind that I'd put some 8 minutes into her in just 8 miles! I sat and ate an egg salad sandwich with Grease Monkey and sipped my coffee for about half an hour. It was the greatest meal I'd ever had. We made a plan for the night so that she could stay in the car sleeping, and finally I got back on my bike. With the whole night ahead of me and a cozy, comforting 30 minutes with my girlfriend behind me, I couldn't imagine how I was going to convince myself to keep pushing.

It had looked like it was finally clearing up, but now it started to rain HARD again, just as the sun was setting. There was the slightest tint in my glasses, so I decided not to wear them and had to squint into the rain. When I reached a short 40-mph-descent into town, my brakes hardly slowed me down on the wet road. I simply wasn't having fun anymore. I did not want to be on my bike anymore. I've mentioned before that usually I'm in a good mood on my long rides until suddenly something will snap, and after that nothing is the same. That point had happened 60 miles ago when I was lying in the grass with my feet up.
Come on, you didn't come here to quit! I told myself. But I just couldn't make myself care. In the car on the way over with the dog looking stoned in the back seat, maybe the last part of me had let go and I had come here to quit.
You at least owe it to your crew and your sponsors and everybody who lent you lights and Garmins and their time. Those people have put you in the lead and you owe it to them to win this race, I urged. That made me feel really, really sick. But I don't want to be riding for anyone else, I decided. And what do they really care anyway? I don't want to be doing ANYTHING if I'm not doing it for me.
I have this rule in workouts where if I'm ever in the middle of a workout and I really, really, really don't want to be there, then I have to quit. I'm NOT ALLOWED to finish a workout that I'm hating. Because if it's a chore, then I'm not going to want to come back tomorrow, eventually I'll burn out, and there's just too much at stake if I lose interest in training. That's not to say I quit every time the going gets hard, I just quit when there's nothing to be gained. I could think of nothing that could be gained by riding through the night in the rain and the hail and the thunderstorms. Riding back into town, I saw other riders heading back out. The thought of it made me sick, like the thought of a swallowing shot of tequila with no chaser in the middle of a really bad hangover.

Quitting

I pulled into the rest stop at 9:00. "Am I still in the lead?" I asked. I hoped I wasn't. If I had given up the lead with all those stops I'd made in the last couple of laps, I decided that I wasn't going to spend the effort chasing anyone down.
"I'd say so," the scorekeeper said. "You just finished your 7th lap, and the other women are... on their fifth... fifth... fifth..." he read, scanning down the sheet.
"You've got over a 60 mile lead," John, the race director told me.
"Don't tell me that!" I whined. "I think I'm going to drop out."
"Why don't you just take a break and rest for a little while?" the scorekeeper suggested. "You have highs and lows throughout the night. You'll come back around."
"You won't be threattening your lead if you take a couple of hours off and take a nap," John assured me.
But what was the point?! I could have taken a 4 hour nap and the next woman STILL wouldn't have caught up to me at the rate she was going. That kind of comforatble lead wasn't going to get me back on my bike when I took rests, and it wasn't going to keep me from taking rests every chance I got. There was simply no reason to push, and if there was no reason to push, there was no reason to ride. Normally winning motivates me to trounce the competition even further, but I just couldn't care tonight. What was the fun if I was averaging 5 miles per hour faster than the runner-up? My legs felt great, my ass was still smooth and unchafed as a baby's behind (thank you Aquaphor! Now recommended by Lance Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael), and even my neck and shoulders felt good. My head simply wasn't in it today. And anyway, if I didn't want to be out here, what was the point of dragging Grease Monkey through a sleepless night?

I went and spoke to her. Tears were shed. "Why don't you just go out there and try another lap?" she suggested.
"Because I do NOT want to be on my bike anymore," I said. "And I'm not GOING to want to be on my bike anymore tonight. It's just not going to happen. It's not my day. I'm not in the mood to put myself through this. I don't want to play anymore. I like suffering, but I'm just not having fun tonight."

I walked back over to the scorekeeper's tent. "I'm going to make somebody's night," I said.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Someone who's down 60 miles right now is about to get 10 and a half hours to catch up. I'm dropping out." They tried to convince me not to. They looked sad for me. "Listen," I said. "There are just days when it's right to quit. My body feels great, I'm not tired. Nothing is giving out on me but my will to keep going, and once that's gone, it's gone. I just really didn't feel like riding my bike today, and now I want to go home." And with that, I did.

Post-Race (Bitch needs to be kicked in the teeth)

Grease Monkey and I drove back to John's house for the post-race breakfast so that I could fulfil my sponsorship responsibilities by handing out samples and also so I could see how everyone had done. Pink Helmet was sitting at the table looking smug. "I braved it through the night," was the first thing she said to me as I walked up to the table.
"Wow, congratulations," I said. "I had a great night's sleep!" It was a lie, but I had made up my mind the night before that I was absolutely, under no circumstances going to mention the lead that I had when I quit. I wanted to be a gracious loser and didn't want to sound like sour grapes.

I knew a bunch of the guys from last year, and they wanted to know how my race had gone. I did my best to explain my mental state in the race, and my reasons for quitting. "I thought that if I pushed myself through the 24 hours feeling the way that I did, that I would never want to ride my bike again. I think it's more important to keep a good relationship with your sport than to push through one stupid race when you're really not into it." They were experienced athletes. They got it, or were at least polite enough to act like they did.
"I don't sign up for races just to quit," Pink Helmet butted in, and then proceeded to talk about her glorious win, where she had wound up completing only 90 miles more in 24 hours than I'd finished in 13.
I got up and walked to the other end of the table.

A little later she cornered me and started talking at me, telling me about this race and that race that she'd done. She'd been slow in all of them, and when she told me her distances in other 24 hour races I was tempted to say "That's it?!" just because she was so damned pleased with herself. I knew that if I'd been in the right mindframe for this race, then I would have beat her and I wouldn't have to be listening to this lecture. "I'm going to have to check in with myself and re-assess my goals before I decide on my next race," I confessed to her. "If I don't want it bad enough to finish a race when I feel good, then maybe I'm just not on the right track."

"Maybe next time you shouldn't bite off more than you can chew," she advised, condescendingly. Grease Monkey was standing next to me when she said that, and later she told me that she could see me turn red and shoot daggers out my eyes. I wanted to say, "Listen, bitch, the only reason that you 'won' this race is because you were such weak competition that I didn't even think it was worth it to beat your ass! You're slow, and I'd DOUBLE lapped you in the first half of the race! I don't sign up for these races just to post mediocre performances and brag about just finishing!" Instead I just flushed and gritted my teeth.
"I was in 2nd for awhile," I said in my defense. It didn't really have anything to do with the conversation, I just needed to find SOMETHING to say that would save my ego. "But I just couldn't get myself fired up." It wasn't till later that I realized that I hadn't said second OVERALL. Bitch probably thought she was ahead of me the whole time. Stupid whore.

Kiss my sun burnt ass, you stupid, arrogant, slow-rolling, pompous cunt!

While I was disappointed that things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, I don't think that I made a mistake dropping out of the race. However, Pink Helmet's comments made me so furious all weekend that I felt sick. I couldn't sit still and was in a rotten mood for the rest of the trip. This seems to be a theme lately: my motives never seem to be good enough for everyone else. I'm treated like a DNF in one aquabike, and made fun of by the MC in another for having "too much energy" at the end when I hopped on the podium. And now, because I wouldn't settle for a performance that I knew was going to be worse than what I was capable of, everyone was assuming that I wasn't capable of finishing at all.

Early on I had decided not to try to break the record officially at this race, all I wanted to do was hit the number to be able to say that I did it. While the world might not know, I would know. When things started going wrong, that cemented my decision not to chase it officially. UMCA has strict rules about crewing in record attempts, and it would cost me lots of money that I didn't have to ostentatiously pay for the right to attempt to be "the best in the world". But I wanted this bitch to see that I wasn't useless. As soon as I got home I looked into what I would have to do to break the record officially. Although I am confident I could handle the riding end of the deal, I couldn't finance the certified land surveyor, the 3 UMCA officials' hourly pay for 24 hours, and the gas it would require for a crew car and an officials' car to shadow me for 440 miles. I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out which goals are more worth my time and money to pursue. Ironman Cozumel? RAAM? Moving west ASAP? Focusing on shorter distances for awhile so that I can catch up with all my friends who might have been more available to me if I had been more available to them over the past 4 months?

Check in with later posts to see where I decide life is taking me...

Solo

I've got many half-written posts about France still marinating and waiting for publishing, but I just seem to have too much to talk about. Last Thursday it finally looked like it was going to stop raining for at least part of the day, so I set out to do the longest ride I've ever done: 275 miles. All by myself.

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:

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 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!

Yeah, but how many miles today?

Spring has finally arrived in Boston. It lasted some 30 seconds before we charged right on to one of the most beautiful summers I can remember. Ever since I stopped working about 2 weeks ago, the weather has been in the sixties, seventies, and even high eighties with beautiful, sunny blue skies. It's made it impossible to get anything done, including blogging, finding a job, or packing for my trip. (I leave tomorrow, eep!) What I have done, though, is ride my bike nearly every single day. Last week I rode over 425 miles all in one week, just because there was no reason not to.

On Monday I went out for a 45-mile ride with some of the bike shop groupies to watch the Boston Marathon. We took it easy, and rode up the course backwards to mile 10 to watch the wheelchair competitors, the elite men and women (wow, Kara Goucher is even hot when she's running!), and most of the qualified runners come by. Somehow I missed Cranky running by, which I was very disappointed about. This post is not about the Boston Marathon, but there is one thing I noticed while I was watching. I know that they say that elite men and elite women run at roughly the same cadence, but that's not what it looked like. The elite men looked like they were taking long, effortless, bounding strides. The women, on the other hand, were taking tiny, choppy strides. Their feet looked like they were moving about 6 inches per stride, and that they were able to maintain sub-6-minute-mile pace because they were taking about a thousand of those 6-inch strides in a minute. The Asian women, especially seemed to take short, choppy strides. It was all very interesting.

Volunteers setting up at about mile 22.

Riding down Heartbreak Hill.

The elite women. Do you recognize them?

The best picture I got of the Elite men. I'm a BAD photographer!

On Wednesday I took my Phyxie out for a training ride because I thought it might rain on me. I made it 55 miles before I gave up on the rain catching up to me and went home. It's amazing how having to pedal without a break for 3 hours really wore me out much more than riding a geared bike at the same speed. It took my crotch days to recover from sitting in that horrible saddle for so long.

On Friday it got up to almost 80 degrees, and I went out for a solo 130-mile ride. I rode out to the start of a local century about 15 miles away (Climb to the Clouds if you know the rides in the area), and rode the course by myself. The ride has TONS of climbing, but the weather was perfect, the roads were well paved, and it was the first day that the trees had started to bloom and the leaves were starting to spring out. I had a tailwind the whole way home. It was the kind of ride that reminds me why I love riding my bike. I didn't have a single low moment the whole ride. Here are more bad pictures of pretty things taken while riding:

I was very high up in the air. That's what this photo is supposed to show. It doesn't.

Pretty mountain in the background. Instead it looks like a picture of 2 dead trees.

These people must have been very rich because they had a huge house... but I'd passed it before the camera took the picture.

And this is what much of the road looked like. I'm so lucky! I think I peed in these woods, by the way.

Grease Monkey's butt.

On Saturday my Grease Monkey got her new Specialized S-Works Ruby, so I rode a whopping 4 miles with her to work, and 4 miles back. It was pretty intense.

And then on Sunday, I rode a 300K, or 190 miles: about 6 miles shorter than my longest-ever ride.

The ride started out in Schuylerville, NY (about 4 hours away) at 4:00 in the morning. To be there with enough time before the start, I had to leave my house at about 11:30 at night. I like driving through the night, and I was just thrilled with my life as I drove alone across MA and into NY, drinking coffee the whole time. The coffee probably explains why I was loving life so much, and also why once I got off the interstate somewhere near Troy, NY, I had to pee RIGHT THEN! No worries, it was about 2:45 in the morning and I was on a deserted state highway in cow country. I pulled over and began to relieve myself as nature intended. Of course, how could it have gone any other way, a pick-up full of rowdy men drove by right then. I tied it off, stood up, and tried to pull my pants up before they got too close... but what else would someone be doing standing with their pants open in front of their car on a deserted highway at this time of night? They all yelled and hooted and drove on. My day's humiliation over, I climbed back in the car and drove the rest of the way to John, the world's most generous race director's house.

I had never ridden at night before, not really. Sure, I'd ridden under street lights on busy roads for a mile or two, but never in night like this. Schuylerville is so rural that there are no street lights on its roads. There are no cities or buildings that have bright lights on through the night. The moon wasn't even out. It was DARK! We let John, the world's most generous race director lead the charge for the first 2 hours until the sun came up. We rode through an inky black vacuum where you couldn't see farther than 30 feet in front of you, or however far your light reached. I sat on the front next to John, because I didn't trust these other people in the dark. What if they turned into monsters or something?

We're riding along, 2-abreast, taking up the whole traffic lane with John, the world's most generous race director on the left and me on the right when suddenly a GIANT dark beast began moving on the side of the road, and moving FAST! I screamed and swerved. We all yelled and braked. It was Bigfoot! It was a grizzly bear! No, wait, never mind... it was... a horse that had gotten loose. It still scared the shit out of me, and I wasn't about to get too close to it and startle it in the dark. The horse galloped ahead of us for a few miles, and it kept looking back. I think that it realized what deep shit it was in trying to get away in the dark and it was using our lights. Finally it stopped running with us and we rolled along at a less cautious pace again.

I tried to take a picture of the horse, but this was all that came out. It's out there though, believe me.

Other animals I saw on my ride:
Skunk - dead
Beaver - living
Cows and goats - living
Porcupine - splat!
Wild turkeys - both living and dead
Lots and lots and lots of frog pancakes, many with one lone leg sticking up in the air - dead
Dear - deceased

When the sun came up, everyone was still together. Of the roughly 10 riders, there were two kinds: There were the experienced Brevet riders who spent the whole time talking to each other about how "Last year the Catskills 1200k was the only Brevet I did all year, and I don't recommend doing it that way..." and "Well the last time I went to PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris, the Kona, Boston Marathon, or Western States of ultracycling)..." These guys had all the attachments for the geeky reflective night gear, lacked just enough social skills to be into this kind of thing, and wore RUSA (Randonneurs USA) jerseys. The other riders were the ones whose lights hung limply off their snappy racing kits and no handlebar bags with handy plastic windows on top to put their cue sheets in. There were 11 checkpoints along the course, and by the third the two groups had sifted themselves out. I was surprised to find that the people who did most of their training by themselves and couldn't pronounce Randonneur to save our lives were the ones who wound up ahead. The experienced riders scratched together whole meals at each gas station checkpoint and sat around to take their time and eat them. Those of us who were used to riding alone grabbed whatever we could shove into pockets or bottles and got back to our bikes as soon as possible. At least for me, it was out of habit. Not only do I hate wasting time getting cold at rest stops (it just makes you stiffer and more sore), but when I stop on my own long rides, if I spend too long in a convenience store my bike could get stolen.

Mine and Lance's bikes in front of one of the checkpoints.

By about mile 50, John, the world's most generous race director and I were riding with a French-Canadian girl we'll call Canadian Spice (because she had the same name as 2 of the spice girls... sorta), and a guy we'll call Lance (because he was wearing a yellow jersey and resembled Lance Armstrong in that they're both white men on bicycles). As we rode the next 140 miles together, I got to know both their stories, and was impressed by both of their grit, and also their humility. It's important to respect someone if you're going to be staring at their ass or letting them stare at yours for over 12 hours.

Canadian Spice was from Montreal and rode a 13-pound (including pedals and bottle cages) beautiful Cervélo with Zipp wheels. "I didn't always ride such a nice bike," she said in her cute French accent. "A few years ago I rode across Canada on a big metal frame that weighed over 20 lb." She rode solo, completely unsupported, for 10 to 12 hours a day from one side of Canada to the other in a few weeks. "But then last year I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I thought that I deserved to spoil myself. Why save money on a bike when biking is my passion? Life is too short!" And why did she ride a Cervélo, of all the nice bikes out there? "Because Cervélo means brain," she said. And they're Canadian. That bike WAS sexy... it even SOUNDED fast.

Lance was the quiet type. We hardly spoke until after the 100th mile when we finally began exchanging life stories. He had no idea what a brevet was, or Randonneuring, or PBP. He just loved the challenge of riding his bike long distances, and usually did so alone. He would just set out by himself before dawn and ride 200 miles or more, until it started to get dark again, then he would go home to his wife and kids. He hoped to get to 300 solo miles this year... and finish the whole thing before sunset.

In the beginning of the ride, my ass was dragging. I was still sore from the 130 hilly miles 2 days before. But later in the ride, I started to feel great! In fact, I felt better at mile 150 than I had at mile 50. Not everyone was quite so lucky in staving off fatigue. John, the world's most generous race director, kept cramping and getting dropped off the back. After the century mark he was dropping off the back more and more quickly, and at the rest stops he was getting grouchy. After a grouchy conversation with Lance about which side of the lake was the north side, he let himself get dropped for good. I was still on cloud nine. I had packed 2 nutella and almond butter sandwiches; 3 bags of a mix of spice drops, almond M&Ms, charleston chews, and banana chips; and 3 Kind bars. At every control point (gas station) I filled up my bottles with a different kind of drink. I started with Accelerade, but then moved on to Gatorade, root beer, orange juice, Mountain Dew, and the mother of all energy drinks: Red Bull. Lance and Canadian Spice were sharing ham sandwiches, and Canadian spice was stocking up on the best that the Land of the Free has to offer: Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut granola bars.
"We don't have these in Canada!" she said through a full mouth. "These are great!" she gushed, as she shoved one in her mouth and the other five from the pack in her pockets.

My pockets were so stuffed with food that I had to put my sandwiches in a backpack that I wore until about 130 miles when I finally had enough space in my pockets to take it off.

"How is that Red Bull?" Lance asked. "Does it taste good?"
"It tastes like jelly beans that someone's spit back into the can with some Lysol," I said, "but the sugar and caffeine help."
"It's kind of a funny color..." he made a face as I poured it into my water bottle. It reminded me of that scene in House where House is standing in front of a urinal with a can of energy drink in his hand and he says to Wilson, "Funny, it's the same color coming out as going in. Do you think they do that on purpose?"

Yes, Red Bull looks disgusting, tastes disgusting, and has so many questionable substances in it that I wouldn't be surprised if it's outlawed in 10 years, but it works. While Lance had been doing much of the pulling for the first part of the ride, I was now riding in front more and more. I guess it was noticeable enough for Canadian Spice and Lance to share a Red Bull at the next checkpoint. They each got paper cups, and split up a 16 oz can. "It doesn't taste nearly as bad as it smells," Lance said.
"Oh my goodness! I really like it!" Canadian Spice giggled with her accent that just kept getting more and more endearing. "I've never tried it. I eat all organic, all natural, but this tastes really good!"
"Really?!" I asked. I hate Red Bull. I'd moved on to Mountain Dew.
"Oh my God, yeah! I love it! I'm going to get another one before we head out!" And that she did.

We were now rolling through about 200K (125 miles) into our 300K, and Lance and Canadian Spice had their first Red Bull wings. "Wow! I can't believe how much better I feel!" Lance kept saying.
"I'm going to buy a whole case of the stuff!" Canadian Spice went on. At the next stop, which was at a pizza shop, they walked right over to the cooler together to look for more Red Bull while I got our cards stamped.

Meanwhile, while Canadian Spice and Lance were high on Red Bull, we were riding through the Adirondack National Park, and I was high on life. I should have been getting cranky at this point, but I wasn't. As cheesy as it sounds, all I could think about was how lucky I was that my body let me do this. I know I should have taken pictures, but I knew they wouldn't come out. We rode for about 25 miles along one road that rolled up and down like a roller coaster, each downhill would give you just enough momentum to get to the top of the next one. The scenery was beautiful, the pavement was perfect, there were almost no cars, and the riders I was with were of similar riding styles. My body even felt good.

At the next rest stop (you'll notice that this isn't exactly sequential... it was a long day, just bear with me) one of the ruddy-faced townies that looked like he spent his mornings drinking coffee at the convenience store and evenings drinking Budweiser at the local bar asked, "How many miles have you ladies ridden?"
Canadian Spice paused, trying to do the conversion from metric in her head. "One thirty," I told him.
"And how many of those have you ridden today?" he asked, with "little ladies" implicit in his tone.
"Those were all today!" Canadian Spice beamed.
He took a moment, trying to figure out if we were lying. "It would take me a week to ride that far!" he said, now genuinely impressed. Damned right it would! I thought. It was still only lunch time.

The rest of the day continued in much the same way. We would ride for an hour or two, and then stop at a gas station checkpoint and Canadian Spice would get more Red Bull. I had the cue sheet, so I lead more and more because my math skills were getting a bit fuzzy so I kept giving the wrong instructions to Lance. We would make a turn at mile 169.5 and the next turn wouldn't be until mile 174.9 and I would say, "Okay, now keep your eye out because it's going to be a quick right on bluebird lane in half a mile." That sort of thing. Canadian Spice never lead, but she was just so damned cute, it was impossible to care.

Finally, we hit the 24-hour course with about 17 miles to go, and a big tailwind picked up. I lead a paceline next to the Hudson river riding 23 miles per hour with 180 miles already on our odometers. We were cooking! We were going to be the first riders in to the finish by hours. "Now no sprint finishes when we get back!" Lance joked.
"No way! I'm too tired!" I lied. I kind of wanted to be the first one in, even though it was a non-competitive ride and the other two would be right behind me.
"A sprint?! Forget it!" said Canadian Spice.

We came down the final hill towards John's house and all tucked into aerodynamic crouches. And then suddenly my cue sheet and brevet card which had been obediently clipped to my handlebars for 189.5 miles flew off. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I screamed. If you don't have your Brevet card at the end, you don't get credit for finishing. I turned around up the hill, and my companions were kind enough to wait for me. "C'mon!" I called as I zoomed by them a minute later, touching my brakes, but just barely. I made the final right and started sprinting down Pearl St. towards John, the world's most generous race director's house. Just then Canadian Spice came around me and zoomed past to the house in the last 30 feet. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I yelled again for the second time in 2 minutes. I didn't really care, and we all laughed about it later as they accused me of dropping my cue sheet on purpose, but the coolest part was that 2 women were among the first three to finish. "I've never been in a group ride before where women were the strongest riders!" Lance said. "This brevet stuff is pretty cool."

I really look like a tool on the left. Am I sticking my butt out?!

After that I shoved some sandwiches in my mouth and hit the road. I got home almost 24 hours after leaving, stinky and sweaty and dog tired, but STILL in a good mood.

Okay, that's it for awhile. I'm off to Europe tomorrow night, so stay tuned to the twitter feed at the top of the sidebar. Have a great month, everyone. Happy trails!