Pain installment #1

As promised, today I did what I call the 'death ride'. The Hillier Than Thou century course that is held out in northwestern NJ, out Rt 78 West near the Delaware Water Gap (which is actually PA). I got up a little late so I didn't start 1.5 hr drive to get there until about 6:30am. I was rolling on the bike by 8am so all was fine. The weather was incredible today so I wasn't too concerned about beating the afternoon heat. The ride was difficult for sure. Just look at the elevation graph above, it is oddly has the same tooth pattern as the key to unlock the Grim Reaper's wrath...and it did! I don't see any flat sections in there, do you?!! I climbed somewhere between 9300 and 10,000 vertical feet (the numbers differ on my Garmin data depending on what software I look at them in). A handful of the climbs were just plain violent, with sustained grades of 18% to 24%. If that doesn't mean anything to you, it means it is steep as hell. Ever here of the famed Alp d'Huez in the Tour de France? It has an average gradient of 8% and never exceeds 10% at the steepest parts. On one of the earlier climbs of the ride I hit a 24% section and I had to go completely all-out just to get up it without falling over. It's violent attacks like this that take a toll on your legs and you'll pay later in the ride. Like a bank account, you can only make so many withdrawals before you run out of cash. I had to stop on 2 hills for a 30 seconds breather but rode the whole thing except for Ironbridge Road which came at 80 miles, I had to walk the top 1/2 (or 2/3rd's). It's just too steep and long, even on fresh legs I don't think I am capable of climbing it.

The ride was beautiful as hell. There is a lot farm land up on those hills and I rode through most of it. For most of the ride I didn't see many cars, only a few stretches down busy roads or through town centers. It was a little unsettling to see most of the corn fields were bio-engineered crops. Rows of corn had big white signs stating the genetically altered seeds that were planted and the bio company that made them, clearly they were doing some comparisons of new seeds. Seeing that just looks wrong to me. I'm really inclined to only shop organic foods at this point.

For nutrition I brought 3 bananas, 2 Nature's Valley granola bars, a bottle of Perpetuum (a protein drink for endurance sports), a bottle of Gatorate Endurance, and a bottle of water. I mixed the bottles extra strong so I only had to pit stop at 50 miles to buy another water and I was good all day. I alternated sips of Perpetuum and Gatorade every 15 mins and ate a banana or 1/2 a granola bar every hour. It worked out really well, I felt good nutritionally all day. The bananas and granola were awesome, I think this might be my race food plan for IMLOO.

Many may look at my last ditch plan and say it is foolish, that I can't get enough fitness in this time frame and it might even be too much. They are right. I will get a little stronger from all this but today I realized the real benefit I'm getting: I'm raising my pain threshold. These rides are so stupid hard that if I can pull off 3 of them and dig deep enough to finish them and not quit...I'll raise my pain threshold enough to deal with IMLOO on less-than-ideal legs. I guess you could say this is my 30% physical and 70% mental training block. I'm not totally wrecked from today's ride but I am tired. We'll see how the 15 mile run goes tomorrow, it should be pretty easy in comparison. Peace yo! OUT!