2005 Tour de Cure
May 22nd, 2005
Yesterday I completed the Seattle 2005 Tour de Cure 70 mile bike ride. This was an exciting, draining, and worthwhile ride. I never would have thought 6 months back I would have been able to ride for over 4.5 hours straight on a bike. I’m super excited about the progress I’ve made, and feel much more confident that I’m on track for the Seattle to Portland ride in July.
Preamble:
Earlier this week I was having a chat with a friend and he asked me if I was ready for the ride. My answer to him was “I don’t know”, which I explained as I intellectually felt like I’d be able to do it, but was not confident that I could physically.
My concerns were driven in part by my being on a business trip for the week leading up to the event. I only got one day of exercise in, and I was definitely not eating great-healthy ‘training’ food. Instead there was a lot of fat drenched convention food. Good tasting food, but definitely not healthy training food.
My other concern was persistent knee pains I’ve been having for the last few weeks in both my knees. I’ve been going to physical therapy, where the physical-therapist has found my knee caps (especially my right one) not tracking straight up and down. She’s had me doing stretches and specific exercises to try and get it back in alignment. While in Los Angeles during the last week I never felt any knee pains but I had terrible hip pains on my left side, almost like my leg bone was not sitting in the socket with the hip correctly. This hip pain would come and go randomly and it was freaking me out leading up to the bike ride.
I also didn’t get a lot of rest leading up to the event, especially the night before. My plane got in just before 9pm and I didn’t actually make it to my house until after 10pm. By the time I got unpacked and everything ready for the ride in the morning it was close to midnight. Check-in for my group was 7:30am……
The Ride:
My wife drove me down to Marymoore park, where the start of the ride was. It was nice to have a cheering section for the start of the ride. The event organizers had a great spread out for the riders and families. Even though I had eaten breakfast at home (whole wheat waffles with peanut butter, Special K cereal) I took advantage of some of the options they had (bagels with cream cheese, banana and a yogurt.) The event sponsors had gifts and prizes for everyone. I spun a prize wheel at the KBSG radio station booth and won a 10th anniversary copy of Pocohantas.
I was given my rider bib and bike number (201) and then had to figure out how to attach it to my bike. I looked around and saw people putting the numbers in all different spots, I picked the middle of my main tube and managed to knock it loose after 3 pedals strokes into the ride. (Next time I’ll take a few turns of the crank before lining up for the start.)
As I made my way to the starting line, I went to put on my gloves when I found I only had one within my helmet. I had let my 5 year old daughter carry my helmet, with gloves and sunglasses in it, from the car to the registration area. Somewhere along the way she managed to lose one of the gloves. I’ve never ridden a single mile on my bike without my gloves and now I was just minutes away from the longest ride of my life with only my left one. A quick search of the area and lost and found turned up nothing. One missing glove wasn’t going to stop me….
The ride started with a ribbon cutting ceremony. My wife got a picture of me at the start line. And we were off at 8:30am….
As mentioned above I managed to knock my number loose immediately and had to pull to the side to fix it. I worked to catch back up with the pack and cruised in our little peleton down E. Lake Sammamish at a good clip of 21 to 24mph. Looking back on my heart-rate graph I can see that even at that high speed my HR was pretty low. This made me appreciate riding with a pack.
Four miles down the road I hit Inglewood Hill road. This is a *very* steep hill, even though it is pretty short (1/2 mile long). While making the turn from E. Lake Sammamish onto Inglewood I felt something snap within my seat. As I was struggling up the hill and moving into and out of the saddle, another snap and damn if my saddle didn’t just fall off. I felt like I was about to die (my heart rate was at 184) anyways so I grabbed the seat and started walking up the hill. I was able to get to the first side street and propped my bike up against the stop sign. I wasn’t able to get my saddle back to how it was suppose to be, (there are three secure points and at most I could only get two to lock in) but I was able to get the two rear points in and the saddle felt usable as long as I didn’t rock left or right.
I was only a few minutes into the ride, down one glove and now about to head back up the hill on a broken seat. I briefly thought about calling my wife and telling her to pick me up. But I pushed that aside as there were too many people who had sponsored me and I didn’t want to let any of them down.
The next 50 miles went by really quickly. Much faster and easier then I had expected. Almost exclusively I rode completely alone. I skipped the first rest stop but appreciated each of the follow-up ones. My routine was pretty simple, grab some food (normally an energy-gel or two and some additional carbs) some water/Gatorade and then hit the restroom. In and out within 5 mins.
On the road between Carnation and Duvall I was riding along minding my own business when a blue Ford F250 truck came flying by and blew its horn for no reason and scared the living crap out of me. This was the only vehicle related incident the whole ride.
After the last rest stop in Fall City, at about mile 53 I started to realize that I was pushing past the longest single day ride I had every done. Then I hit the damn Fall-City/Issaquah Road. You’ll see it start on my heart-rate graph just before the start of hour 3….and 50 long, hard, painful minutes later I finally reached the top. It was a hard climb and I was mentally fighting for every undulation of the hill. Convincing myself to push to get to the next tiny plateau was all I could do to keep going. I was really wishing I had a 3rd front gear. I will not do this ride again until I either get a compact crank or a 3rd front gear.
It felt like the final 15 miles took as long as the first 55 miles. Stroke after stroke and minute after minute the readings on the computer seemed frozen in time. I kept double checking to make sure it was working (which it was of course).
I eventually came down Beaver Lake hill and got back onto E. Lake Sammamish with about 10 miles to go. I’ve ridden this part of the course many times but never in such an exhausted state. I managed to ride a mile or so behind the Gold’s Gym team. They had a large group, about 15 people, but were riding slow, I wanted to keep my average speed up so I pushed past the group and headed off for the finish line.
With only a few miles left to go I was cruising along nicely when out of a driveway on my right came a crazy white terrier barking its head off. It was the second time I had the crap scared out of me. I came out of the saddle and tried to lose the dog, but he kept up and was gaining on me. I was actually starting to panic as he was getting closer and closer. I’m not sure how far he chased me but eventually he gave up. You can actually see this on the graph at the 4:30 mark, where my heart-rate jumps and my speed goes from 15 to 25mph.
I finished the ride back where we started and was presented a medal for finishing.
I was really happy with my performance. I only had the one mechanical problem (my seat) with the bike. A day later and I’m sore in my quads and upper shoulders. I have a really hard time lifting my right arm higher then my shoulders, which I will follow up with the Physical Therapist next week.
Below is log from the computer in addition to a few snapshots of the ride.
Quick Stats: 69.3 miles, 15.6 mph average, heart-rate 155bpm average for 4:41 minutes. 5437 Calories total
Yesterday I completed the Seattle 2005 Tour de Cure 70 mile bike ride. This was an exciting, draining, and worthwhile ride. I never would have thought 6 months back I would have been able to ride for over 4.5 hours straight on a bike. I’m super excited about the progress I’ve made, and feel much more confident that I’m on track for the Seattle to Portland ride in July.
Preamble:
Earlier this week I was having a chat with a friend and he asked me if I was ready for the ride. My answer to him was “I don’t know”, which I explained as I intellectually felt like I’d be able to do it, but was not confident that I could physically.
My concerns were driven in part by my being on a business trip for the week leading up to the event. I only got one day of exercise in, and I was definitely not eating great-healthy ‘training’ food. Instead there was a lot of fat drenched convention food. Good tasting food, but definitely not healthy training food.
My other concern was persistent knee pains I’ve been having for the last few weeks in both my knees. I’ve been going to physical therapy, where the physical-therapist has found my knee caps (especially my right one) not tracking straight up and down. She’s had me doing stretches and specific exercises to try and get it back in alignment. While in Los Angeles during the last week I never felt any knee pains but I had terrible hip pains on my left side, almost like my leg bone was not sitting in the socket with the hip correctly. This hip pain would come and go randomly and it was freaking me out leading up to the bike ride.
I also didn’t get a lot of rest leading up to the event, especially the night before. My plane got in just before 9pm and I didn’t actually make it to my house until after 10pm. By the time I got unpacked and everything ready for the ride in the morning it was close to midnight. Check-in for my group was 7:30am……
The Ride:
My wife drove me down to Marymoore park, where the start of the ride was. It was nice to have a cheering section for the start of the ride. The event organizers had a great spread out for the riders and families. Even though I had eaten breakfast at home (whole wheat waffles with peanut butter, Special K cereal) I took advantage of some of the options they had (bagels with cream cheese, banana and a yogurt.) The event sponsors had gifts and prizes for everyone. I spun a prize wheel at the KBSG radio station booth and won a 10th anniversary copy of Pocohantas.
I was given my rider bib and bike number (201) and then had to figure out how to attach it to my bike. I looked around and saw people putting the numbers in all different spots, I picked the middle of my main tube and managed to knock it loose after 3 pedals strokes into the ride. (Next time I’ll take a few turns of the crank before lining up for the start.)
As I made my way to the starting line, I went to put on my gloves when I found I only had one within my helmet. I had let my 5 year old daughter carry my helmet, with gloves and sunglasses in it, from the car to the registration area. Somewhere along the way she managed to lose one of the gloves. I’ve never ridden a single mile on my bike without my gloves and now I was just minutes away from the longest ride of my life with only my left one. A quick search of the area and lost and found turned up nothing. One missing glove wasn’t going to stop me….
The ride started with a ribbon cutting ceremony. My wife got a picture of me at the start line. And we were off at 8:30am….
As mentioned above I managed to knock my number loose immediately and had to pull to the side to fix it. I worked to catch back up with the pack and cruised in our little peleton down E. Lake Sammamish at a good clip of 21 to 24mph. Looking back on my heart-rate graph I can see that even at that high speed my HR was pretty low. This made me appreciate riding with a pack.
Four miles down the road I hit Inglewood Hill road. This is a *very* steep hill, even though it is pretty short (1/2 mile long). While making the turn from E. Lake Sammamish onto Inglewood I felt something snap within my seat. As I was struggling up the hill and moving into and out of the saddle, another snap and damn if my saddle didn’t just fall off. I felt like I was about to die (my heart rate was at 184) anyways so I grabbed the seat and started walking up the hill. I was able to get to the first side street and propped my bike up against the stop sign. I wasn’t able to get my saddle back to how it was suppose to be, (there are three secure points and at most I could only get two to lock in) but I was able to get the two rear points in and the saddle felt usable as long as I didn’t rock left or right.
I was only a few minutes into the ride, down one glove and now about to head back up the hill on a broken seat. I briefly thought about calling my wife and telling her to pick me up. But I pushed that aside as there were too many people who had sponsored me and I didn’t want to let any of them down.
The next 50 miles went by really quickly. Much faster and easier then I had expected. Almost exclusively I rode completely alone. I skipped the first rest stop but appreciated each of the follow-up ones. My routine was pretty simple, grab some food (normally an energy-gel or two and some additional carbs) some water/Gatorade and then hit the restroom. In and out within 5 mins.
On the road between Carnation and Duvall I was riding along minding my own business when a blue Ford F250 truck came flying by and blew its horn for no reason and scared the living crap out of me. This was the only vehicle related incident the whole ride.
After the last rest stop in Fall City, at about mile 53 I started to realize that I was pushing past the longest single day ride I had every done. Then I hit the damn Fall-City/Issaquah Road. You’ll see it start on my heart-rate graph just before the start of hour 3….and 50 long, hard, painful minutes later I finally reached the top. It was a hard climb and I was mentally fighting for every undulation of the hill. Convincing myself to push to get to the next tiny plateau was all I could do to keep going. I was really wishing I had a 3rd front gear. I will not do this ride again until I either get a compact crank or a 3rd front gear.
It felt like the final 15 miles took as long as the first 55 miles. Stroke after stroke and minute after minute the readings on the computer seemed frozen in time. I kept double checking to make sure it was working (which it was of course).
I eventually came down Beaver Lake hill and got back onto E. Lake Sammamish with about 10 miles to go. I’ve ridden this part of the course many times but never in such an exhausted state. I managed to ride a mile or so behind the Gold’s Gym team. They had a large group, about 15 people, but were riding slow, I wanted to keep my average speed up so I pushed past the group and headed off for the finish line.
With only a few miles left to go I was cruising along nicely when out of a driveway on my right came a crazy white terrier barking its head off. It was the second time I had the crap scared out of me. I came out of the saddle and tried to lose the dog, but he kept up and was gaining on me. I was actually starting to panic as he was getting closer and closer. I’m not sure how far he chased me but eventually he gave up. You can actually see this on the graph at the 4:30 mark, where my heart-rate jumps and my speed goes from 15 to 25mph.
I finished the ride back where we started and was presented a medal for finishing.
I was really happy with my performance. I only had the one mechanical problem (my seat) with the bike. A day later and I’m sore in my quads and upper shoulders. I have a really hard time lifting my right arm higher then my shoulders, which I will follow up with the Physical Therapist next week.
Below is log from the computer in addition to a few snapshots of the ride.
Quick Stats: 69.3 miles, 15.6 mph average, heart-rate 155bpm average for 4:41 minutes. 5437 Calories total
posted by daryl @ 9:57 PM
<< Home