recipes and ride reports (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bikingandbaking) wrote2014-05-06 09:19 pm
bikingandbaking) wrote2014-05-06 09:19 pm
Double Feature: NER 200K and 100K
First things first: I have absolutely no pictures from either ride. Just those in my memory. (Which is partly why this report will be so detailed; to pin those images to my mental scrapbook, but alas, I cannot share them with you. I'll link some other people's photos at the end, though.)
The first ride of the weekend was the biggie. The Boston 200K up into New Hampshire to New Boston, which would be my longest ride, ever (I was going to say second-longest, and then I realized that I cannot add. 127.5 mile brevet + 22.5 miles total to and from the start = 150, not 140. I think I'm glad I was thinking second-longest the entire day.) It would also be second-hilliest (and that figure I'm sure of.) Plus, after taking 46 minutes off my time on the 100K, which is hilly, I was aiming to do this fast.
Fast for me, at least.
So I latched on to a quick pack heading outbound, and hung on for a good ten miles. I don't think this was a mistake, even though my legs were dead by the end of the ride; I wasn't pushing that hard. I was down in the draft and it was flat, and I was crusing comfortably. Still, it was maybe a little much. The pack was zipping along at 18+mph when another, slightly faster one, came through and tore us apart like turbulence. A few attached to the faster pack; the rest of us came unglued, and shortly thereafter the beginnings of the small climb up to Westford put an end to that. Another pack, going ~17mph came along, and I latched on to it for a bit, but dropped off again a few miles later.
I looked down at my watch and my odometer. I'd gone about 18 miles in the first hour of riding. Holy shit. I was still cruising along, though also keeping my eye out for a decent bathroom option, because TMI. Found a portajohn (handicapped-size, with fresh toilet paper -- very luxurious!) in Hollis and got back on the road.
After that, the ride started to get hilly. The first climb was nice. Not too steep, and we wound our way up alongside a pretty little brook.
Here I digress. Randonneurs often call a route "scenic" as a euphemism for "hilly". And yes, hills create these big great vistas. But they're not my favorite scenery. Even if they weren't so danged hard to climb. I like water. Rivers, lakes, oceans. Give me water to ride alongside and I'm happy. I turned the pedals up alongside little waterfalls, ducked away from the brook and Brook Street when it went unpaved, and picked up a different little rivulet to take me to the top.
Then it was down into the first stop, at 49 miles. I checked my old-fashioned odo -- 13.9 mph, a pace I'd only hit on the CRW spring century last year, which was flat-flat-flat. I topped off my water bottles, got my card signed, shoved a cookie in my mouth, and was out of there. Lots of people had stopped for actual lunch, but I was raring to go. I climbed back out of the valley the stop had been in (not a big climb), and saw a tandem blasting its way in -- oh, that's Pamela and John, i.e. the route designer and her husband, so if I want to curse the hills, I should probably do so politely.
The next bit was fairly unmemorably, honestly -- some quiet, gently rolling roads trending upwards but nothing onerous. Then another descent, a turn, and a wall of asphalt. Oh, great.
I got off and walked. Amusingly enough, few enough women have uploaded results there on Strava that I took top-ten with my two-foot amble up it. After a tenth of a mile or so, it evened out, and I got back on the bike for the rest of the slog. If I remembered correctly, this was climb 2/3. I...sort of remembered correctly. There were two big single climbs; then there was sort of a long series of rollers that vaguely averaged up and then down. So I was feeling slightly more accomplished than was really warranted.
The descent from that one was fun, though, nice clean roads and good sightlines. I may not be good at climbing, but I'm good at converting potential energy to kinetic.
We went through Wilton, which was pretty, and then the pavement got awful and the rollers got constant. I walked several times, on hills I could climb if I had to, but I couldn't climb all of them.
Pamela and John passed me trotting up a hill, and I assured them I was having fun; a few minutes later a police car passed us, lights flashing. There'd been an accident; a rider had slid out on a descent. Somewhat shaken, we all got back on our bikes (aside from the folks who'd been riding with him and were actually handling talking to the police and going in the ambulance). I didn't feel quite as much like ripping down descents after that.
Then we passed the turnaround for the ultramarathondphilli1 is doing this fall, which was the first familiar place since long before we hit the NH border. It put my mind back on the ride, and meant I was on the home stretch. Out of the real hills.
My GPS started freaking out and shutting down after the last stop, but I was able to reboot it occasionally. I hadn't even made 10mph on the hilliest section, but losing the ability to track my data was kind of refreshing.
The last bit was supposed to be flat, with just "one hill". I'm not sure which of the three hills that seemed huge was "the hill", because my legs were dead, but we'd gone over these on the way out, and I knew they were really tiny. Ten miles out another rider I'd been leapfrogging grabbed my wheel rather than passing as I crept up an incline and we trucked together into the finish to the sound of tired fellow riders applauding.
11 hours, 16 minutes. 12.4 (ish -- I didn't have data for the whole thing) mph rolling average. Over two hours built up over the limit; if this were a longer ride, I could have sat down for a meal and a real rest and still been well off. That was the goal.
I took it easy on the way home, and was entirely sure I was going to wake up when my alarm went off in the morning and blow off the second ride in favor of sleep.
I woke up an hour and half before my alarm, raring to go. IDEK. Sunday's ride was a 100K I'd done before, and remembered as pretty darn flat. Well, it probably was, but my legs weren't really agreeing with that. It did wind along the Charles River for quite a bit, whereupon, like when I did it last year, I just wanted to be on a boat. Boooooat. I think I mentioned I like riding along water. Or hiking, or walking, or skiing, or paddling (well, duh, on that one). Something about it just feels right.
I took it easy, and didn't push. The wind did, a bit. It was swirling and blustery, and I alternated between putting my head down and powering through it and getting batted around. I was stopped for a good ten minutes or so waiting for a road race in Wellesley to go past.
When I'd done this ride before, it was my first one of these rides, and I was nervy and worried about everything. This time, I knew I could do it, and I just kept my effort reasonable. Sure, it took me 15 minutes longer than it did last year, but last year it was An Event; this year it was a recovery ride. And I didn't need to walk up Trapelo Road either time.
I got home from that one less tired, but with the soreness from Saturday kicking in.
Monday, I woke up feeling pretty good. My legs are still tired, but nothing feels wrong except my neck and shoulders, which are 99% due to being a type-A computer programmer and only 1% due to hunching over handlebars, and a weekend gaming is generally worse. :) I should have hit the spin bike this afternoon to loosen things up, but I had forgotten I had back to back meetings and couldn't slip away to the gym for a break.
Lessons learned:
1. 30 minutes is not enough time for me to get first-breakfast and out the door. My stomach isn't ready to eat, and I'm still half-asleep and dawdling. 45 minimum; an hour better. Leaving home an hour and a half before the ride starts is correct, though, giving me time to spin sloooooowly out to Concord and snack on second-breakfast at the start.
2. I need to make sure to eat enough salt. I didn't get cramping or anything, but I think I didn't get enough. All I wanted was sugar, and ice cream was what I wanted, but not what I needed.
3. I need to take the GPS out on some longer training rides and figure out WTF is wrong with it.
4. Sleep ahead of time is good. I was (and still am) somewhat sleep-depped just because I rely on weekends to catch up. I should take a half-day off before the 300K and a full day before anything longer.
5. I need to ride more hills. Take the long way home from work rather than the downhill way. But I can hold the speed I need at my current hill-crawling pace and not blow my knees up.
6. Short stops are good. I haven't hit a distance where I need a long stop; even when I felt lousy, a few minutes walking the bike uphill solved it.
The first ride of the weekend was the biggie. The Boston 200K up into New Hampshire to New Boston, which would be my longest ride, ever (I was going to say second-longest, and then I realized that I cannot add. 127.5 mile brevet + 22.5 miles total to and from the start = 150, not 140. I think I'm glad I was thinking second-longest the entire day.) It would also be second-hilliest (and that figure I'm sure of.) Plus, after taking 46 minutes off my time on the 100K, which is hilly, I was aiming to do this fast.
Fast for me, at least.
So I latched on to a quick pack heading outbound, and hung on for a good ten miles. I don't think this was a mistake, even though my legs were dead by the end of the ride; I wasn't pushing that hard. I was down in the draft and it was flat, and I was crusing comfortably. Still, it was maybe a little much. The pack was zipping along at 18+mph when another, slightly faster one, came through and tore us apart like turbulence. A few attached to the faster pack; the rest of us came unglued, and shortly thereafter the beginnings of the small climb up to Westford put an end to that. Another pack, going ~17mph came along, and I latched on to it for a bit, but dropped off again a few miles later.
I looked down at my watch and my odometer. I'd gone about 18 miles in the first hour of riding. Holy shit. I was still cruising along, though also keeping my eye out for a decent bathroom option, because TMI. Found a portajohn (handicapped-size, with fresh toilet paper -- very luxurious!) in Hollis and got back on the road.
After that, the ride started to get hilly. The first climb was nice. Not too steep, and we wound our way up alongside a pretty little brook.
Here I digress. Randonneurs often call a route "scenic" as a euphemism for "hilly". And yes, hills create these big great vistas. But they're not my favorite scenery. Even if they weren't so danged hard to climb. I like water. Rivers, lakes, oceans. Give me water to ride alongside and I'm happy. I turned the pedals up alongside little waterfalls, ducked away from the brook and Brook Street when it went unpaved, and picked up a different little rivulet to take me to the top.
Then it was down into the first stop, at 49 miles. I checked my old-fashioned odo -- 13.9 mph, a pace I'd only hit on the CRW spring century last year, which was flat-flat-flat. I topped off my water bottles, got my card signed, shoved a cookie in my mouth, and was out of there. Lots of people had stopped for actual lunch, but I was raring to go. I climbed back out of the valley the stop had been in (not a big climb), and saw a tandem blasting its way in -- oh, that's Pamela and John, i.e. the route designer and her husband, so if I want to curse the hills, I should probably do so politely.
The next bit was fairly unmemorably, honestly -- some quiet, gently rolling roads trending upwards but nothing onerous. Then another descent, a turn, and a wall of asphalt. Oh, great.
I got off and walked. Amusingly enough, few enough women have uploaded results there on Strava that I took top-ten with my two-foot amble up it. After a tenth of a mile or so, it evened out, and I got back on the bike for the rest of the slog. If I remembered correctly, this was climb 2/3. I...sort of remembered correctly. There were two big single climbs; then there was sort of a long series of rollers that vaguely averaged up and then down. So I was feeling slightly more accomplished than was really warranted.
The descent from that one was fun, though, nice clean roads and good sightlines. I may not be good at climbing, but I'm good at converting potential energy to kinetic.
We went through Wilton, which was pretty, and then the pavement got awful and the rollers got constant. I walked several times, on hills I could climb if I had to, but I couldn't climb all of them.
Pamela and John passed me trotting up a hill, and I assured them I was having fun; a few minutes later a police car passed us, lights flashing. There'd been an accident; a rider had slid out on a descent. Somewhat shaken, we all got back on our bikes (aside from the folks who'd been riding with him and were actually handling talking to the police and going in the ambulance). I didn't feel quite as much like ripping down descents after that.
Then we passed the turnaround for the ultramarathon
dphilli1 is doing this fall, which was the first familiar place since long before we hit the NH border. It put my mind back on the ride, and meant I was on the home stretch. Out of the real hills. My GPS started freaking out and shutting down after the last stop, but I was able to reboot it occasionally. I hadn't even made 10mph on the hilliest section, but losing the ability to track my data was kind of refreshing.
The last bit was supposed to be flat, with just "one hill". I'm not sure which of the three hills that seemed huge was "the hill", because my legs were dead, but we'd gone over these on the way out, and I knew they were really tiny. Ten miles out another rider I'd been leapfrogging grabbed my wheel rather than passing as I crept up an incline and we trucked together into the finish to the sound of tired fellow riders applauding.
11 hours, 16 minutes. 12.4 (ish -- I didn't have data for the whole thing) mph rolling average. Over two hours built up over the limit; if this were a longer ride, I could have sat down for a meal and a real rest and still been well off. That was the goal.
I took it easy on the way home, and was entirely sure I was going to wake up when my alarm went off in the morning and blow off the second ride in favor of sleep.
I woke up an hour and half before my alarm, raring to go. IDEK. Sunday's ride was a 100K I'd done before, and remembered as pretty darn flat. Well, it probably was, but my legs weren't really agreeing with that. It did wind along the Charles River for quite a bit, whereupon, like when I did it last year, I just wanted to be on a boat. Boooooat. I think I mentioned I like riding along water. Or hiking, or walking, or skiing, or paddling (well, duh, on that one). Something about it just feels right.
I took it easy, and didn't push. The wind did, a bit. It was swirling and blustery, and I alternated between putting my head down and powering through it and getting batted around. I was stopped for a good ten minutes or so waiting for a road race in Wellesley to go past.
When I'd done this ride before, it was my first one of these rides, and I was nervy and worried about everything. This time, I knew I could do it, and I just kept my effort reasonable. Sure, it took me 15 minutes longer than it did last year, but last year it was An Event; this year it was a recovery ride. And I didn't need to walk up Trapelo Road either time.
I got home from that one less tired, but with the soreness from Saturday kicking in.
Monday, I woke up feeling pretty good. My legs are still tired, but nothing feels wrong except my neck and shoulders, which are 99% due to being a type-A computer programmer and only 1% due to hunching over handlebars, and a weekend gaming is generally worse. :) I should have hit the spin bike this afternoon to loosen things up, but I had forgotten I had back to back meetings and couldn't slip away to the gym for a break.
Lessons learned:
1. 30 minutes is not enough time for me to get first-breakfast and out the door. My stomach isn't ready to eat, and I'm still half-asleep and dawdling. 45 minimum; an hour better. Leaving home an hour and a half before the ride starts is correct, though, giving me time to spin sloooooowly out to Concord and snack on second-breakfast at the start.
2. I need to make sure to eat enough salt. I didn't get cramping or anything, but I think I didn't get enough. All I wanted was sugar, and ice cream was what I wanted, but not what I needed.
3. I need to take the GPS out on some longer training rides and figure out WTF is wrong with it.
4. Sleep ahead of time is good. I was (and still am) somewhat sleep-depped just because I rely on weekends to catch up. I should take a half-day off before the 300K and a full day before anything longer.
5. I need to ride more hills. Take the long way home from work rather than the downhill way. But I can hold the speed I need at my current hill-crawling pace and not blow my knees up.
6. Short stops are good. I haven't hit a distance where I need a long stop; even when I felt lousy, a few minutes walking the bike uphill solved it.