well, that was unexpected

I’m standing at the top of what could be the largest hill on this course, catching my breath after climbing my way to the top on foot. The guy standing next to me had walked the second half of the hill after recovering from the debilitating leg cramps that had him on the ground 1/2 way up. I looked at my bike computer and said to my miserable com padre, “there goes my first goal”. If I’d finished before 2:20 pm, I’d have met my super-secret goal of <3 hours. It was 2:22 and I still had ~5 miles to go.

I knew early on that my super-secret goal was not going to be achieved. I’m not very good at math, but it doesn’t take a professor to figure out how long my race was going to be when I was averaging ~8mph in a 28 mile race. In fact, I was so convinced of my finish time that I almost didn’t finish at all. By mile 6, I was talking myself into quitting the race at Williamsburg road. It was too embarrassing for me to roll across the finish line 4 hours after I started.

I’d had it in my head that Williamsburg road would be somewhere around mile 14 (1/2 way through the race). But, when mile 14 came and went, the other part of my brain started talking. Suddenly, I was telling myself that “just not feeling it today” was not a good enough reason to quit. My bike was working fine and I hadn’t even had a hint of leg cramps. I was a little bit chilly on some of the faster/flatter sections, but I couldn’t say I was too cold to go on. Temperature wise, I was pretty comfortable in fact. I hadn’t bonked and had been doing pretty well drinking heed and snagging gatorade a the aid stations. I was just slow and miserable.

It turned out that Williamsburg road was at ~18 miles. I was about 2 hours and 10 minutes in and there was no reason I couldn’t do 10 more miles. I stopped and had a banana, filled up my water bottle and had a couple of cups of gatorade before heading back out.

The last 10 miles were tough. The hills were bigger so I walked more. BUT, there’s alot more downhill in that last 10 miles, so that made it a little more enjoyable 🙂

My finish time was 3:57:57. I completely broke into tears when I crossed that finish line. I cried because the ride was so hard. I cried because my feet were so cold. I cried because I missed all of my goals (I thought I was over 4 hours at that point) and I cried because I was glad I’d finished.

In the end, I’d finished 6th out of 6 and won a spot on the podium. I was slow. I know this. But, since this year has been about introspection and self awareness, I came away with the following thoughts:

• I’m pretty sure I walked much less this year than in previous years, and I’m definitely sure that I rested considerably less than previous years.
• For the first time, I noticed how many flat sections there are on this course. In the past, I could only remember lots and lots of hills. This year, I acknowledged the flats – even though I couldn’t seem to take advantage of them much.
• If I’m in good shape, it takes ~5 miles for me to warm up. If I’m in so-so shape (which I thought I was this weekend), it usually takes be ~8 miles to warm up. On saturday, I think it took me ~14 miles to get to the point where my muscles were loose enough and my body was saying “hey, cool, we’re riding a bike! lets keep doing that….). Because it took so long to warm up, I feel like I kind of wasted the first 1/2 of the race because I couldn’t take advantage of the long flat sections.
• DFL is for sure better than DNF
• “just not feeling it today” is not a reason to quit a race.

I still have a long way to go before I’ll be happy with my measured results as a biker.  I’m still often discouraged to see so many friends just keep passing me by.  I’m sure I’m thought of as a ‘slow’ biker and I don’t doubt that people have commented about my impending lack of speed.  Its not easy to continually finish in the back of the Lady Clyde class, but I keep riding against the same women who are maybe struggling just as much as me.  And, even in this miserable iceman race, I still had a couple of times when I said “woo hoo” .