I’ve been working on hills and really trying to get my mileage up and my shifting knowledge better, so I could ride this event with him. A week or so ago, he told me I might actually be able to ride the whole thing, or at least get far enough that he could reasonably come rescue me. I dared to hope, but didn't count on being totally ready yet. I really wanted to improve on the hills more, but I needed another week of training and that can't just get added to the calendar.
We packed our gear, including some extra water bottles, and headed out for Fredericksburg. An hour later, we arrived in the square and signed in with the ride leader. We get our gear on and gather for the pre-ride briefing. The ride leader tried to brief us on the hills by telling us there were three large uphills, but they are rewarding with three great downhills. I decide to keep the reward in mind if I'm struggling up a hill. I had no idea how hard that would be.
The group heads out. We're on a side street and have some struggles with the group at a couple of stop signs and dealing with traffic, but then we're on the shoulder of the highway and on our way. The group is already pulling ahead of us and I'm not moving very fast as we're already heading up a gradual hill. I start trying to psych myself up. I knew what I was in for when I started this ride, so I need to get ready for the real hills to come. We take a left turn off of the highway onto a quiet country road that struggles to be a two lane road. The sense of being out in the quiet country is amazing. The challenge is the slow and constant uphill pedaling. It's so gradual that it appears to be a flat road, but it's not.
At seven miles, I announce to Pete, "I have never been this exhausted after only seven miles." He chuckles and shows me the GPS elevation map that shows a constant uphill climb since we started out. I feel a little better, but begin to wonder where is that downhill reward that we were promised. Meanwhile, I've become a pro at riding across cattle guards. This part of the countryside is littered with one area after another of free roaming cattle areas. We'd even been warned to watch for random cattle in the middle of the road. It didn't take but a crossing or two to learn to lift my butt off the saddle for the crossing. Then I learned if I'm near a need to shift, I should do so before the crossing as the crossing will slow me down a beat or two. You have to be sure to cross a cattle guard square on so your wheel doesn't turn and get caught in between the rails. I'd hate to taco on a ride! Plus, we have a friend, who is quite the hammerhead and she cracked a vertebrae when she tacoed.
We cross the highway and head off on the next country road. Ten miles into the route, my right knee begins to ache. I tell Pete, but keep moving. Pete's a little concerned as this is new and we're not even a third of the way through the route which promises to get more difficult. Another mile and Pete tells me it's decision time. If I go much further, I won't want to turn around and I'll be committed to the full route. Or, I can turn around now and it'll be a fairly easy downhill all the way back to the truck. I tell Pete that I'd rather continue on as far as I can and wait for a rescue than turn back and not get as much mileage as I can. I wanted to push myself and not quit early.
There is a quarry on our right side and an active mine on our left. I can't actually explain why, but the scenery reminds me of a summer when I was growing up and visited my grandparents on the Olympic Peninsula. The road is flat and I take some time to enjoy the moment and take it in. I laugh at a sign in the quarry "This is a left hand quarry. Stay to the left." Pete explains the truck reasoning behind the sign and the functioning of the quarry. The mine surprisingly warns you of active explosive, but is lacking in the usual "no trespassing" signs. The road begins to go down a hill. I look ahead and I can't see the road as it disappears. It feels like I'm going to ride off the edge of a cliff. I tell Pete to go ahead of me and he nearly disappears over the edge. I follow his helmet down the hill to the road I cannot see. This is the downhill reward! I can't see the bottom of the hill. The road keeps going. It's steep and I'm glad we're going this direction. I follow Pete and watch his selected path and where the wheels wobble. I glance down at my computer and see 36 mph, then 40 mph. That's it! I can't look at that any longer. I have a death grip on my handlebars and I'm flying along.
Suddenly, I notice the chalk marks on the road for our ride. There's an arrow pointing straight for the 34 mile route and a left arrow for the 50 mile route. Pete blew past his turn for the loop to make his route longer. We come to the breakpoint about 16 miles in and see a group of riders just finishing their break and heading out. We refill our water bottles, catch our breath and stretch out a bit off of the bike. Then we head back out on the ride continuing along the mapped route. Besides the fact that the turn for the 50 mile loop was a nearly impossible turn, Pete has decided to stick with me.
As we pedal on, Pete announces a deer in the road. I look up and there is a deer standing square in the middle of the road staring us down. I chuckle at how the deer is just staring at us and Pete says "what else are you going to call out?" Just then, the deer dashes across the road and into the greenery on the left. As we approach the spot, a baby deer darts out, crosses the road and follows mom. I smile and say "Bambi!" Honestly, that's so much easier than "Look! A baby deer." As the baby disappears, another one comes into the road and follows the first two. I excited cheer, "Twins!" By this time, we're passed the spot and the deer had completely disappeared into the trees.
This next country road takes us past some old homes and school houses. I am really enjoying the ride again. The scenery is enjoyable and the road is reasonably flat. I tell Pete I like this part of the ride. He's surprised, but I enjoy the flat road with the occasional slight incline, the scenery is great and there is plenty of shade as we ride along. I decide it's time for a quick break, some Gu, and electrolyte replacements. We find a mailbox in the shade and stop. The mailbox says "Happy Trails" on it and there are two short decorative pillars that make perfect benches. As we take our break, two of the cyclists on the ride (who did the 50 mile route) pass us. Then the car from the breakpoint comes by. All check on us and leave us to our break with promises to catch up at lunch.
We pedal on and come to a grassy clearing at a bend in the road. Standing in the middle of the knee high grass is a deer and her twin babies. Mom is closely watching us as we pedal by. I wish I had a camera with us. We can come back in the car to capture the scenery, but the brilliant green grass with the three deer is a missed opportunity. It is amazing to me how close the deer allow you to pedal by without running off. We pass a neat fence. It's obviously made from the local branches of the trees on the property. I tell Pete to remember this because I want to come back and take some artistic photos of this fence. It seemed to just keep on going too.
It's apparently time for another uphill battle. This is truly only the second, and I suddenly remember there are supposed to be three of these sections and we're only 21 miles into the 34 mile route. Then my knee starts to hurt again. I try to struggle on, but now my bike won't shift into the small ring again. I start bargaining with myself to get to 25 miles. I get to 23.5 and wonder how I'll last another mile and a half, but I'm determined, so I just slow down a bit and try to take it easy. We head up another hill and I decide I can't make it to the 25 mile mark. We stop and talk through our options. Pete lays them out.
- Continue on slow and steady with as many breaks as I need.
- I stop and sit under a tree while he goes to get the truck.
- I continue on at whatever pace I want, but send Pete ahead. He then doubles back when he gets to the truck and picks me up when we cross paths.
I think about it, stretch my knee and decide for option three. I tell him to go ahead and I'll pedal on at my pace. I promise to stop if I'm tired or it hurts too much and just wait for him to find me. I tell him if he gets to this point that he missed me and turn back. I manually put my bike into the small ring in an effort to help me through the uphills. We jump on the bikes and he takes off as I slowly make my way up the hill. I pass a few cows and he is out of sight. I pass a couple cows roaming the area and find myself talking to them. I'm getting tired and there's a hill. I decide to stop and take advantage of some shade. I'm not sure about my ability to make it up the hill. I try to get the cow to help convince me I can make it up the hill, but she just looks at me like I'm disturbing her lunch. I decide my knee doesn't have the climb in it, but I'm not ready to stop and sit under the tree until Pete gets there, so I put on my cleat covers and decide to walk up the hill. As I walk up the hill, a car passes me. I listen to how long he accelerates up the hill and realize that I'm nearly at the top and then I can jump on the bike.
Once I crest the hill, I jump back on. Surprisingly, the walk has done my knee some good and I feel fine as I pedal on. I begin to feel completely alone and enjoy the quiet, yet feel isolated from the world. I somehow have a weird feeling of calmness, yet uncertainty (not quite scared) at the isolation and aloneness. It was a weird sense of safety, yet total solitude. It's truly hard to explain, I enjoyed the moment, but was thankful that I knew it wouldn't last for more than an hour or so. I tried to take in the scenery and enjoy the time.
Then the road goes down hill. I'm afraid to take advantage of the speed and shift into my big ring, so I just coast along in the small ring. I find that I even gathered enough speed that I rolled up and over one incline without ever pedaling. That tells me I'm moving fast, even if the bike computers didn't. As I roll on, I notice the miles are beginning to tick by. When I'm not focusing on the distance, I seem to go a lot further. I've gone 27, now 28, now 29 miles! I'm now determined to go 30 miles. No problem! Now I'm doing the math, if it's a 34 mile route, I'm only four miles from the finish.
Then the next batch of hills appears. Oh no! This can make the last four miles a killer. And now I'm remembering that the three hill segments are supposedly fairly equivalent. This does not sound exciting, or doable to me. I head up the first incline and see the next bit of the hill. I know my knee doesn't have that much more climbing in it. I begin to look for a good, shady resting spot, but find it difficult as I'm closer to town and I'm getting into neighborhood now rather than random free range cattle areas. Just then, I see a Ford truck, but I can't make out the color of it because of how the sun is hitting it. I think, "it'd be great if this was Pete." Just then, the truck makes a left turn into the neighborhood and I see that it's a tan truck and not Pete. Deciding not to take my break in the beautiful grass of someone's front yard, I spot a dirt road with a tree and figure I can park my bike near the road so Pete will see it and go sit under the tree. As I pedal up to the side road, I see Pete in the Excursion crest the hill. As he rolls up, I get a huge grin and say "perfect timing!"
I look down and I've gone 30.75 miles. I'm happy with that, even though I haven't finished the route. Considering my sore knee and the fact that I couldn't have done this ride a month ago, I'm happy with completing all but four miles of the route this year. We load my bike on the truck and I take off my gear and grab some cold water. A big hug and we climb in the truck. We drive back into town and I get to see the route (from the inside of the cool truck doing the climbing) and I'm glad I didn't try to finish the route today. The hills are the steepest (or at least appear to be) of the route and it's a lot of one after another before you're at the end of the climbing. Yes, you have another great downhill that carries you into town, but I'll conquer this part of the route, next time. Pete tells me that one of the riders who passed us actually cramped on this section of hill. Proof that I made the right decision not trying to power through the pain.
We get back to Fredericksburg and meet the rest of the cyclists for lunch. Everyone is all smiles and glad to see that I made it. I learn that beyond the guy who cramped, someone had breathing troubles and called the ride leader for a pick-up along the route. I think I did well today. I didn't complete the ride, but I sure feel like I accomplished a lot. I know that I still have a lot of hill training to go, but now I know what hills are really like and what beautifully scenery I can see if I can conquer those hills. Pete tells me he's proud of me and that confirms my feelings of success. I'm thankful that he stuck with me for the route today, but I'm sorry that he didn't get his miles. He doesn't seem concerned, so I'll let it go for another ride. One of these days I'll be strong enough on the hills, a bit faster on the bike, and have more endurance for longer routes to be able to keep up with him so he gets a good training ride and workout in too.
We'll mark this down as a route to conquer at a later date, but it's a success today too! Also worth noting, I've now clocked more than 300 miles on my bike since I started this training adventure. That's an amazing number to me. I know it's nothing to those who can do 100 miles in a day, or even 100 miles in a week without thinking about it. But when you're still doing short distances like I am, 300 is quite the number!
Goals
Today's Miles: 30.7
Total Miles Achieved: 329.1
Financial Investment: $972.39
Total Weight Loss: -0.2
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