bicycling – PretenseSoup

Viroqua Triathlon Race Report

Ok, Viroqua Triathlon race report. I’m going to try to keep this short because I’m pretty tired and I got stuff to do. Got up at 4:30 in the morning (a time I’ve concluded should not exist) after a few hours of fitful sleep, ate a poptart, and dragged out of the house by a few minutes after 5. I’m glad I took extra time to pack everything up and put my bike in the car the night before, because triathlon requires so much gear and preparation that trying to do it at 4:30 would have led to me driving off sans helmet or something terrible like that. I had actually planned to leave the house by 5, assuming the drive was 90 min, so I would arrive by 6:30. The drive was actually longer than that, and I had to stop for gas. It got a bit nerve-wracking, actually. I was just pulling into the outskirts of Viroqua (a town with a “watch out for horse-drawn buggies sign on the main drag, as well as actual horse-drawn buggies galloping along) at 7.

At 7:10, I arrived at the pool. There were a few bike racks set up, so I dropped my bike off and ran inside, where no one seemed too concerned that we were 20 minutes away from the beginning of the race. Packet pickup went quickly enough, and I changed into my swimsuit and set up my transition area in about 15 minutes total for all three activities, so that by 7:28 I was standing on the deck of the pool. I was in the first wave of swimmers (at the time, I assumed that this was because I registered super early so I couldn’t convince myself not to do the tri. More on this later though.). We were assigned two to a lane in a really nice six-lane pool. I was in lane 1, and it was really wide—we probably could have gotten another person or two in without issue. The way the pool was set up, there was a wall with an opening in it that led to a shallower area (probably for water aerobics), and consequently the pool was super warm, at least in comparison to the pool I usually swim in, which is kept at 81 degrees. So everyone gets in the pool, the lane counter explains how everything works—eighteen laps, I’ll signal when you have one more using a kickboard and then signal when you’re done, have fun and good luck. I was a little nervous, suddenly feeling unsure about decisions like wearing my earplugs in the pool, wearing my watch, signing up for a tri when I’m obviously not a triathlete. . . . Pretty normal pre-race jitters, I guess. A few minutes after 7:30, the race director got on the microphone and talked and then we started.

Because of the nerves, I was feeling out of breath by the time I got to the end of the first lap (unusual for me). I guess I was probably pushing the pace, and also trying to do flip turns, which is always a bit stressful in a new pool. I consciously slowed myself down, focused on my stroke, and decided to stop with the flip turns for the time being. Things improved. By the time I hit nine laps, I was really moving—I passed the guy who was sharing the lane with me. I felt like I was flying, super aerodynamic despite the watch. I finished the swim in 17:24.3, the second fastest swim split!

Transition was run out the door and down to the transition area, dry off as fast as you can, regret the choice to try to put on tight spandex tri shorts over wet legs, hop about like an idiot, make sure your ear plugs get into your bag of stuff, grab the bike, duck underneath the rack of bikes because I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing, and sprint for the exit. 2:53.8. I think this is comparable to other tris I’ve done. (Actually, I just looked it up, my first transition in my first tri was 5:05, but I had to take off my wetsuit and I dropped my chip and all kinds of terrible stuff. I apparently didn’t blog about my other tris.)

The bike course was really pretty amazing. The first five miles were mostly downhill with a few rolling hills I was able to get up without issue. I knew ahead of time that there were only two really serious hills on the course. The first came a bit before mile 10, I think. According to MapMyRide, it was a 4.3% grade, which is pretty steep but not as steep as the hill I do hill repeats on. I knew it was going to be trouble when I was listening to the RD give me a description of the bike route, and when he said, “And then you turn left on Helgerson Road,” some guy standing behind me said, “Oh man, we have to go up Helgerson Hill?” Hills that have names are not fun hills. In person, it seemed very, very steep, that kind of lung-sucking climb that makes you grab the handlebars of your bike and bend over and just gasp to try to get through it. Sitting up straight is a better strategy though. Also, as I slowed down, a gigantic cloud of bugs came to attack me. Awesome. The second hill was longer but less of a climb (1.9%) and I went up it without any issues—it was actually almost fun compared to the first hill. As I was just getting to the base of the second big hill, some of the first sprint racers started to catch me. One asked if I was in the Oly. I said yes and that it was nice to see someone, since I’d been basically alone for the last ten miles. She mentioned that there were only six people doing the Oly, and only two women (so that was why I was in the first wave). I knew the other woman had gotten out of transition a few seconds before I did and was really fast on the bike, since I hadn’t seen her since. So at that point I knew I was basically racing for second place. Maybe she would have a bad run and I’d be able to catch her.

The best part of the bike was going past all these little small-town Wisconsin buildings. I passed a very small white clapboard church with a steeple, and a small graveyard behind it. It was like biking through Our Town. As I crested a hill, a flagger shouted to me, “Don’t worry, it gets better from here!” and then added, as I was almost out of earshot, “And then it gets worse again.” An accurate description of life. I finished the bike in 1:23:31, a pace of 16.8 mph if you believe their course measurement of 23.41 mi, and slightly slower if you go with the 20 miles my watch measured it at. Yes.

T2: Put on your shoes, blow your nose, remember to take off your helmet and go. 1:48.5.

As I was coming over the last small hill on the bike course, I’d seen the lead woman who was quickly overtaking the kid I’d shared a lane with (the run shared the same road as the bike course). She was really moving, so I knew I wasn’t going to catch her. At the same time, I’d passed another woman who was doing the Oly (turns out there were more than two of us) at around a mile into my run, so I had to push it a little to make sure I didn’t get caught myself. The run was a 10k on an out-and-back course—it ran almost entirely downhill to the turnaround, and almost entirely uphill back to the finish. I feel like I’ve learned two things from ultra running—the first is, always stop to fix small problems before they become big ones. And the second is, run with the terrain when you can, because it will totally turn against you. So I did the first 5k really fast, I think I was running 8:30s. The turnaround was a guy sitting on the bed of his pickup with his puppy. I got a glass of water from him and headed back. I passed the other runner who was on her way out to the turnaround and we attempted to high five. I cheered on a lot of the last few bikers and told them they were only a mile from the finish, and they cheered for me. It was cool and overcast, and the rolling fields and small houses made it feel like a Grant Wood painting. I slowed down to a 9:10ish pace on the way back because of the hills. With about one mile to go, my legs were pretty done. But then I got a little more downhill and made a respectable finish. Run time was 55:14; total time was 2:40:52, well below my goal of three hours.

My awesome post-race selfie, for those (Mom) who didn't see it on FB. — My awesome post-race selfie, for those (Mom) who didn’t see it on FB.

It turns out that there were in fact seven athletes who competed in the Olympic tri, five women and two men. The lead guy was out of the pool and out of transition before I managed to get to transition, so I never even saw him—he finished in 1:59:xx. The last woman, who must have been so far back I don’t even know if she’d started the run by the time I finished it came in at 4:04:xx. The age groups wound up a bit weird (why was it Men 20–29 but Women 26–35?), but I was the only woman in my age group and consequently got a medal. Overall I finished fourth of seven participants and the second woman of five. The woman who beat me did the swim in almost exactly the same time (she was a few seconds slower than I was), then did the bike in 1:11 and the run in 44.5 minutes. So clearly there’s something to aspire to.

And that’s it. I had a sweet roll from a local bakery, put my stuff back in the car, and drove to Green Lake for my husband’s family’s family reunion. Conclusions: All the time I spent doing 5×100 at I-want-to-die speed in the pool paid off. I should have spent more time pushing myself to go faster on the bike and working on hills instead of just training for distance. Running track has helped me keep my speed decent, despite the high training volume; my legs felt good and I think I would have been faster in a non-tri race. I can’t say I was sorry to get up this morning and “only” run without having to do a brick (a workout where one does at least two of the three tri disciplines), but I’ll miss some of the variety of triathlon training as I transition to getting ready for my last big race of the year, the Antelope Island 50k. Of which more later, because this “short” race report is now suddenly 1,800 words and I need to go make myself some dinner and maybe walk the dogs. Thanks for reading!

Capital View “Couples” Duathlon

Lest you think my life is entirely given over to literature now . . .

I got up at 5:10 this morning to go do a duathlon, primarily because I signed up for it in a fit of enthusiasm back in . . . March or something. It was so close to my house, such a good chance to practice biking in race conditions before my tri in July. It would be fun.

Fun. I remember fun.

Okay, so I went into this race feeling a bit overtrained. “But Em, overtraining sounds like a positive thing, like you’re really on top of your training!” No. Overtraining is a thing that can happen if you train too much and don’t recover sufficiently–don’t take enough days off.[1] Symptoms include fatigue and decreased performance (despite speed work, you’re not getting faster); gastrointestinal upset; an increase in respiration rates or higher resting heart rate; lower appetite and increased thirst; decreased motivation to work out; feelings of sadness/depression or anxiety (for example, if you typically keep your anxiety in check with exercise, you may suddenly find yourself having an anxiety attack about your cat at midnight one night). Oh, changing sleep patterns too. If I get really bad, I tend to get night sweats.[2] So yeah, it’s a lot of fun not very fun. Lately I’ve had to drag myself out the door in the morning, and although my legs feel strong on the run, I feel mentally disconnected from what I’m doing. Add to that an ever-changing variety of stomach issues and the anxiety thing . . . it has been a rough few weeks around here.

Anyway, after I finally figured out what was going on, I decided to use my taper (yeah, I tapered for this) as the beginning of recovery, and just do the best I could with what I had in the tank on race day. Aside from getting lost on what was supposed to be an easy Friday morning bike ride[3], I think things went pretty well on that account. The race was a (trail) 5k, a 25-mi bike, and another trail 5k, which makes it pretty typical for duathlons in this area, although Wikipedia says the “classic” distance is in fact 10k run, 44km bike (a bit more than a marathon, for those that don’t do metric), and 5k run[4]. I completed these events plus two transitions in 2:43:19.2, good enough for 6th 5th in my age group and 36th35th overall. Here’s a quick breakdown of what happened.

Run 1

The last race (a trail half marathon) I did, I had to drive an hour between breakfast and the start of the race, so I was STARVING by mile two. This time, I grabbed a granola bar right before kickoff, and I think it was a good decision. The trails were wide and grassy, but not too spongy from last night’s rain. The biggest difficulty was in the sandy sections on the second loop. I was still pretty miffed with the event staff and volunteers for being badly set up and unable to answer any questions, so I basically stomped my way through. Perhaps because it was on trails (or because i had to run so damn much getting to packet pickup and transition), I couldn’t hold my planned 8:30/mi pace, but I finished in 27:21 (8:49 pace), not too far off.

Bike

Transition went relatively quickly (2:07) despite my never bothering to practice (oops). Also one never practices running in clip-in shoes, which is too bad because it is a pain in the ass.

Ok, I knew the course relatively well (I live five miles from it, after all)–it was a lolly pop shape–outbound to Enchanted Valley Road, a loop through Cross Plains, then back. Having ridden it Friday, I had a plan in place for where I was going to push it (the long flat section on Schneider Road, both directions); where the hills were (small rollers in the first five miles, then a bunch of downhill on bad roads, then some climb, then we’re back to the rollers); and where I was going to eat my gel (salted caramel flavor!). What I didn’t expect was the temperature–it was at least ten degrees colder than I thought it was going to be (it was maybe 60 when I expected 70-75 and humid), and overcast, and I was racing in a sleeveless tri top and very short shorts.

As I was running out of transition, I heard a woman shout to another racer, “Stay down on the hills, try to build some warmth.” Figuring this was a good plan, I stayed on the drop bars as much as I could throughout the race, and I think it made a difference in my time, which was a personal best in terms of average speed. I did get passed by a lot of people though–everyone from sixty year olds to guys on bikes that cost as much as my car.[5] I could appreciate, watching them, how useful aero bars are for position–given my geometry on the drop bars, I think properly positioned aero bars would get me quite low. But most of the riders with aero bars had bikes that were geared to allow them to climb hills without getting out of the aero position, while on my bike I find it most useful to get off the drop bars (and even stand up and shift my weight forward) to climb, so I don’t know that it would really be worth it overall.

I was alone for most of the first fifteen miles of the bike, but it was actually quite pleasant. I sang some various songs to keep myself company. (Example one; example two.) By mile 15, the oly triathletes had started to catch me, so I was within sight of others for the rest of the course. (Unlike cycling, drafting is not allowed in triathlon, so riders never bunch up into a peloton.) Around mile 17, I started thinking I should plan for the second transition . . . ultimately I decided to dismount in the normal way and do the run-in in my bike shoes rather than trying something weird like getting my feet out of my shoes before the dismount. In the last five miles I passed: two older people who had gotten off to walk their bikes up a hill; two older guys (50+) on mountain bikes, a woman whose chain jammed as she tried to pass me, and a 50-something woman who was having a devil of a time on the last hill.

I’m so badass, man. Elapsed time: 1:41:05, 14.8 mph.

Run 2

A few steps into the transition area, I stopped to take off my bike shoes to see if that would speed me up. My toes were totally numb from biking fast in the cold, but not numb enough that I didn’t feel the pavement under them. Ow! So I hobbled over and switched up my kit. T2 time: 2:40, very consistent.

The second run was basically the first run backward, sort of. The first run had consisted of an A loop and a B loop (arranged like a figure-8). The second run did the B loop first (forward), then the A loop (backward). I wish they had said that at the starting line instead of “follow the signs for the Sprint,” because I saw exactly one sign that said “Sprint” on it. During this run I passed at least one woman wearing a duathlon bib and saw a couple of others who were pretty far behind, so I knew I wasn’t last even though I felt like I was. I was, however, tired. I let myself shuffle along at whatever seemed like a sustainable pace; as the numbness in my toes receded, I found myself picking up the pace, and I think I actually did negative splits. My stomach was beginning to complain (cramp) at this point, but I told it to shut up because there was only a mile left to go, and I soldiered on. The second run was about three minutes slower–I finished in 30:04, a 9:42 pace. Not amazing, but could be worse.

Final Analysis

It’s clear that my crappy bike time was really the limiting factor here. Looking at all (50) finishers, there’s a strong correlation between the bike time and overall finishing order.[6] Also, almost everyone in the top 10 had a more consistent time between R1 and R2–they were within about a minute of each other. However, that particular fact is not relevant since I’m not doing another duathlon this season (as far as I know). Getting my bike speed up to 15 or even 16 mph would make a big difference in my finish. My main takeaways for July’s tri are: 1.) Gel around mi 11 is a great idea. 2.) Bike a lot more before July. 3.) Stop being overtrained. That’s all. Here’s a picture of my animals to thank you for reading this. Hat tip to Michelle (a former coworker from long ago), whose report on the sprint tri spurred me to write my own. Also, sorry about all the parenthetical remarks.

Notes

[1] If you frequent fitness message boards, you often see people asking questions that amount to something like “I’m walking a mile per day worried about overtraining lol.” (Sorry, it’s the internet.) They’re probably not overtraining. But just because they’re not doesn’t mean nobody is, which I tend to forget until I hit the spot of oops too much. Also it goes to show you that everybody thinks their workout is super badass. As for me, my last two weeks before this one were 35 mi run/54 mi bike/2500 yds swim (week ending 31 May) and 51 mi run/37 mi bike/2500 yards swim (week ending 25 May)–doesn’t seem too onerous, but I guess it crept up on me. I did run 196 mi in May and 206 in April, suggesting a high weekly average.

[2] Other symptoms can be found by googling the term “overtraining,” but this 90s-era website has a fairly comprehensive list and looks reputable.

[3] Amusingly, in my attempt to figure out where the “challenging hill right before mile 15” (as listed on the course description) was, I took a wrong turn and wound up biking up a much more difficult hill.

[4] Duathlon.com says 40k rather than 44k. Regardless, nothing in Wisconsin has a 10k/5k runs, to say nothing of long distances that can range up to 15k/80k/7.5k or 5k/56 mi/13.1 mi. Since I basically decided a few years ago I wasn’t going to travel over about 40 minutes for races that were shorter than a half marathon, I’ve not been super interested in going places in order to run two miles, bike 12 miles, and run another two miles.

[5] If you are a 43-year-old white man with a bike worth over $5k and an M-Dot tattoo on your calf, I have nothing to say to you.

[6] Actually, my idea of using the runs to compensate for the bike made me something of an anomaly–no one who finished ahead of me had a speed of under 15 mph, as well as the next four finishers behind me!

The Dairyland Dare

So I have been putting off writing this for various reasons. I guess the biggest one is my own idiocy though, so here we go.

Sorry, this is going to be long.

The Dairyland Dare or DD is an organized group ride, not a race. As you may or may not be able to tell from looking at the DD website, although there was chip timing, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to actually retrieve my time from, so unlike every other event I’ve done, I have no idea how I did relative to other people. They didn’t post timing info until this morning (Saturday, 18 August). Full results can be found here. To find my results specifically, hit CTRL+F and type “815.”

It turns out I finished 6th in my age group (out of 7 women), or 258th out of 312 people who did the 150k. My watch time was 7:24:15.88, but my chip time was 8:31:11.

Yeah, I lost.

I originally started training for the DD back in late May/early June, right before I hurt my leg and had to stop running for a while, primarily because I wanted to do something bike-related without suffering drowning myself during another triathlon. I’d elected to prepare for the 150k, and then maybe “if things went really well” I’d do the 200k (distances go from 50k/31 miles to 300k/no one knows how many miles this is). After my injury, the PT gave me permission to do whatever I wanted for cross-training as long as it didn’t hurt, and since biking generally didn’t hurt, it seemed like a fine way to keep my cardiovascular fitness and prepare for an interesting challenge while waiting for my leg to heal so I could get to some damn marathon training.

RIGHT SO what actually happened was that I found that biking alone takes a lot longer than running (I can run 15 miles in under two and a half hours. To bike 50 miles takes at least four hours, and 50 miles isn’t even an exceptionally long training ride). Usually I do my longer runs with friends other people (haha, Noel) such as my running group, B, or even my dog. But I don’t know anyone who bikes. This makes things a bit boring. The best ride I had was where I met up with someone who needed directions and was forced to ride with me for a good ten miles.

The other thing I discovered is that I’m pretty slow. On one really good ride I hit 14 mph average, but although my goal was to average 15 mph, I was usually MAYBE around 13.x. This would always demoralize me, but also it extended the amount of time I had to spend out biking–if you’re only going 15 miles, an extra two miles (about nine to ten minutes) is no big deal. If you’re going, say, sixty miles, the difference in time becomes 4.6 hours at 13 mph versus 4 hours at 15 mph—a difference of about 40 minutes, a long time!

My training was not awesome. I did most of my riding out on the Ironman WI bike course, which is a GREAT course, but about half the total climb of the actual DD course (by which I mean the DD course has 10k feet of climb over nearly 100 mi, so 50 mi should have 5k feet; the IM course had about 2.5k feet of climb over 50 mi). I peaked at a long ride of 70 miles or 238.33 miles for the week, then took a two week taper.

Then, only a week before the event, we went through a family crisis that I won’t rehash here, except to say that it was kind of difficult and traumatic. At the time, I told B I wasn’t sure I was still up for the DD. B said he thought I should not give up, that I would be unhappy in a few weeks when I looked back on all my training and realized it was all for naught. I thought this had some wisdom to it, so I agreed that I would persevere. Under the circumstances (lack of sleep, inability to eat a large quantity of food at once, anxiety), I gave myself permission to do the 100k if things went really badly.

The first 50k

B drove us out to Dodgeville on Saturday morning and I started out in the 7:00 wave (a bit later than I’d wanted to, but not a big deal). The early part of the course was very fast—I did the first 5 miles in 17:29.41, about 17.2 mph. I was exhilarated through the early miles, and thought that if I could keep the pace up, I would be done in way less than my estimated seven hours.

After the first rest stop (mile 16-ish) I noticed the hills were changing in character a bit, getting steeper and longer. The maps distributed to us marked most of the really steep hills, but after a while it began to seem more like the markings were just to indicate a road that was incredibly hilly. Toward the end of this section, I noticed my knees were hurting on the hills. I finished the first 30 miles in 2:13:22 [watch time; I don’t have the exact time for the first 50k because 1. My watch records a reading every 5 miles and 2. It was actually like 33 miles instead of 31]. At the end of the first 50k, I stopped briefly to take off my long-sleeved shirt and raise my bike seat (a bike seat that is too low can cause knee pain). I was feeling pretty good at this point.

The second 50k

The second 50k started with a long flat stretch going down the road between Dodgeville and Governor Dodge State Park, and I made good time. Because of some detours, we got two loops of GDSP, about which let me just say—wow, what a beautiful park. I hope I get a chance to go back and run some trails in there. I know I’m not a hard-core park-going person, but I can kind of not believe that this place is within an hour’s drive of my house and I’ve never done a race there!

The main road around the park makes a loop of just over five miles; the first half is primarily downhill and very fast, the second half is mostly uphill and very steep. About two-thirds of the way through that uphill, we hit mile 38 and the next rest stop. When I got off the bike to use the latrines at the rest stop, I noticed I was feeling some pain under the ball of my right foot. This had happened once before on a training ride and a friend had suggested it meant my cleats were too far forward. However, although I actually had a pocket knife with me, I was worried that changing anything would make the situation worse, so I just grabbed a gel and a banana and got back on the bike.

In retrospect, this was stupid—any change would have potentially been an improvement, and if not, well, considering how things came out it would hardly have been worse. BUT I couldn’t have known that at the time, I guess.

On my second circle of the park, my knee (left knee) started acting up again, so I stopped and raised the seat again. This time it didn’t help, which should have been a clue for me…

I got to mile 50 at 3:44:11 and took this picture:

I was feeling good (the pain was going away when I got off the bike, so I assumed it was nothing serious) and even jauntily texted my mother to let her know I’d call her in another 47 miles. I did ask the medic on duty at the rest stop if he had anything to help me, but the best he could do was offer me an ice pack. Not too helpful.

At mile 57-ish (officially 58.4, but that’s not what my watch said), I came to the turn-off for the 150k. I still kind of wonder why I did this, because it was pretty clear that my knee was not going to get better, and my right foot was hurting every time I pushed down on the pedal on that side.

And, you know, I could have turned around, too, because it seemed like almost as soon as I got off the 100k route, things went directly to hell. Between miles 60-62, there was a hill—just a long, slow grinder that went on for the better part of two miles and left me in pain and exhausted with nearly forty miles to go.

I reached mile 65 in 4:25:08.

The third 50k

Looking at the map for the 150k, I noticed we were running out of hill markers—three remained before the first rest stop, then two more, then another two and we were done. At the point I stopped to look, I had already ground up that long hill I already mentioned (County Z), so I really had only six hills left! Huzzah. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as all that.

Here, in case you are curious, is the elevation profile for miles 60-97.

Do you see how between miles 70-75 there’s a dip, then a really strong rise? That was one of those hills that sort of rises up in front of you like a wall. It was at least as steep as any of the really big hills out on the IM course (like the one on Old Sauk, or County highway Jj going into Mount Horeb, which I know is not on the official IM course but 92 was closed this summer), and quite long. I saw a number of people getting off to walk (including one tall man in a blue jersey [Mr. Blue] who I’d been trading places with over the hills for five miles), and the guy ahead of me in a red white and blue jersey that said “Brooklyn” on the back was progressing up it in a series of switchbacks. Of course, it didn’t look <i>too</i> bad compared to what I’d been training on, so I dropped to my smallest chainring and went right up it.

If I hadn’t already been in pain, I actually don’t think it would have been too bad. It was definitely the steepest hill of the day, though, and I was more than a bit demoralized when I got to the top (another rest stop, around mile 74) and realized how long this was taking. I was not going fast, nowhere close to the 15 miles per hour I needed to hit 7 hours…and of course I actually completely blanked on how long I was spending at rest stops, because I was stopping my watch. At the mile 74 rest stop, I texted B an apology. He said he was fine, happy to wait, and he’d see me at the finish.

At this point, I figured—eleven miles to the next rest stop (about 40 minutes?) plus another twelve or so to the finish after that. Totally do-able. Only four more hills. So I took off.

The next rest stop was near mile 85 (at the time I texted B. that I was at 84.23, so that must be it). At the time, my average speed was 13.2 miles per hour. I hit mile 85 at 6:26:37, which is a long time to be on a bike. I was also pretty demoralized by this point, but there were only two more hills between me and a hot shower. I said as much to Mr. Blue, who happened to be returning to his bike at the same time as I was.

“Two more hills, that should be easy for you.”

I laughed.

The first hill (Farlook Road) was a grinder, nothing too terrible. Slow, but I managed it. But then we came back to County Z and County Z at ZZ. This was not so much a single hill as a series of hills similar to the one I’d ridden up on County Z during my first visit. It took me a while and several short but steep climbs to realize where I was. Finally I hit a section of downhill. I was flying and there were no more big hills between me and the finish line. I reached down to grab my water bottle.

Suddenly, a bee flew into the gap between my sun glasses and my eye. With one hand holding the handlebars and one holding my water bottle, there wasn’t much I could do. I screamed in an undignified manner and flailed uselessly. With my left hand, I managed to steer the bike to the side of the road and stop. Almost simultanously, I unclipped a foot so I wouldn’t fall over, return my water bottle to the water bottle cage, and grab my glasses off my face. By this point the bee, being fed up at being trapped, had stung me. On the eyelid.

Suddenly the bad mood, fatigue, and low blood sugar I’d been fending off for the last twenty miles came down around my shoulders. I stood at the side of the road and cried.

Another rider I’d passed earlier went past: “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t answer. As she rode off, I heard her say to her friend, “It must be some kind of insect bite.”

Yup. That was at mile 88. I reached 90 at an average speed of 12.1 miles per hour and finished (96.62 miles total) in the times mentioned above, average speed of 13.0 mph. Not awesome, but at least I crossed the finish line under my own power. B met me, by the way, and very kindly brought me my stuff so I could shower; then we went home and I crashed on the sofa for a while.

post-race — I look sad and chubby here. In reality I am neither most of the time.

And that’s everything that happened and nothing that didn’t.

Well, onward and upward.

Em oi! #347: The Ride

Last Saturday I biked 33 miles. This was Bryan’s response when I got back home…apparently the combination of (especially sticky) sunscreen, bike chain grease, and road grit picked up by the wind is not a great one.

After I got home I went to my cousin’s bridal shower in Chicago. It was a lot of fun. When I had to come home (I left at about 22:00–oops), my muscles had frozen up from exercise plus sitting around all day, so I had weird leg cramps all the way home. Lacking a heating pad or any sort of ibuprofen, I tried to warm them with my coffee cup. It worked about as well as you might expect.

I don’t know why I made my shirt that color. Not only do I not own anything that color, I actively hate it and would not only never wear such a color but would actively discourage any friends, relatives, and potential future offspring from wearing it. I guess I grabbed the wrong marker.

There’s a special trick to going up and down hills like these–and yes, they really are that steep. Any eleven year old knows the trick: don’t brake on the way down, then pedal furiously as you hit the lowest point of the valley and start climbing the other side again. It has taken me something like two years of biking this course to get to where I can really do that without freaking out. This is possibly because the idea of falling off my bike at speed freaks me out.

File this one under: HE5736 .L86 2011, for:

Transportation and communications — Bicycles — General works.

(Previously: HE5736 .L86 2010a, HE5736 .L86 2010, and GV1048 .L86 2010. I don’t know why I cataloged#312 under GV1048–HE5736 seems like a better category overall.)

Em ơi!#326: A Valid Strat

More colored pencils. I am kind of digging the richness of the color, though it is kind of stylized.

File this one under: HE5736 .L86 2010a, for:

Transportation and communications — Bicycles — General works.

If you were wondering, last week I biked 100.5 miles, not including the 2 hours and 40 minutes I spent on the Spin bike at the gym. It turns out I can read while on the Spin bike, which increases the appeal a little bit. This week so far I have biked 20.8 miles; today I took the day off because I had a terrible headache. I have looked back in my running log through to May and I can’t find a day where I didn’t do something – biking used to be what I did on my day off from running (and many of the other days, too). So this is odd. Instead, I baked a loaf of bread using whey from a bottle of goat’s milk I made cheese out of. I also ate a bunch of cookies and studied MySQL.

It is a magical life, I tell you.

Anyway, with regard to the comic (oh yeah): Bryan eventually realized that I had a flat on my bike and not on my car and helped me call a cab to take me downtown. I finally found out that my brakes had been rubbing on the rear tire and worn a hole through which the tube squished and subsequently ruptured. It was a trying day, since I went through two tubes before the bike shop figured out I needed a new tire.

I’m for bed. I have a new story being published (it is actually available for preview/online purchase right now); I’ll put up more details about that tomorrow or Thursday.