I have held off with updates, hoping to add photos (as well as being a chronic procrastinator). Enough good things have happened (and a few not so good), so here we go.
First, I've now done several mile swims (unfortunately none open water) and my times are getting better. It's a total of 66 laps down and back, initially with a 2-4 minute rest every 5 laps, now down to about a minute rest every 10 laps. My biggest concern regarding swimming is technique. I've had no formal training and suspect my form is not what it needs to be. Obviously as the distances get longer, the need to be efficient becomes more and more important. I just got a dvd from http://www.triswimcoach.com/ that seems to have gotten many good reviews. More feedback to follow on that.
Second, my wife and I have "geared up" our tandem bicycle riding in preparation for the Multiple Sclerosis society's MS 150 ride 9/10-11/11 from Southaven, MS to Tunica 75 miles/day for two days. Last week at my local bike shop, I encountered a recent retiree who logged 130 miles the day before and had ridden 80 miles "so far" at 10:30am. Needless to say, this guy was a cycling beast. I casually mentioned that I was looking to do my first century ride (100 miles) soon, to which he replied "check out the Sunrise Century in Clarksville, TN this weekend! (check out their website at http://clarksvillecentury.com/ )
This ride includesin addition to the 100 miler, a 33 mile "fun ride", and a 62 mile "metric century" (100km). The normal sane person (or couple) would have signed up for the 62 mile ride considering the 150 mile ride coming up the following weekend. But those sane people don't live at our house! I ran it by my wife who says "let's do it!". Another idea hits me. I'm wanting to find ways to get/keep my kids moving, so I ask my 14 year old son if he'd be interested in the 33 mile ride (his previous longest ride was 13-15 miles). He gives the thumbs up when the next phase of my plan goes into movement....calling his 20 year old sister to see if she'd drive in from college an hour or so away to join us for the ride (her previous longest ride being 12 miles this summer) and I'm tickled to say, she joined in too. Everything is looking great, until we watch the weather.....95-100 degrees for the next several days with 70-80 degrees the day AFTER the ride. We are up until midnight or later driving 2.5 hours to Clarksville Friday night after our local high school homecoming game (hint: not enough sleep), and up at 5:30am to get registered for the 7am start. With approximately 1,000 riders present, you can cut the excitement with a knife. This ride is touted as the flattest and fasted century in cycling, lending itself to an option to join the "elite peloton" which is a group of riders that must be able to maintain 25mph+ for the total distance! In 2008, the group broke 3 hrs 45 minutes! That group gets to lead off at 6:45 followed by the tandems (bicycle built for two)...that's us, and then the rest of the riders. We take off like greased lightening (in our minds) in the cool morning air averaging 18-24 mph without too much effort. At mile 25 or 30 we have our second rest stop and my first time to pee (hint: not enough to drink before the ride). I'm feeling good and pouring the gatorade down like gangbusters. At mile 50, it's starting to get HOT and where did these hills come from? I'm making a mental note to mention to someone that this IS NOT FLAT (which I discover later is a relative term among cyclists and organizers). At mile 60 I'm feeling like I've got 20-25% battery left for 40% more riding (make that 50% given the hills and heat) and did I mention I'm still not making any more urine? I'm trying to be smart and take a long rest (shoes off, sitting down, helmet off, eating and drinking). While I'm sitting on the ground I feel a couple of small localized cramps in the sides of my legs. "Hmmm" I say to myself, "it's time for more bananas and gatorade", which I take care of and off we go. 250 yards down the road from the rest stop....POW!!!! I suddenly feel like I've been hit in the leg by a sledge hammer with first one cramp, then another unlike anything I've ever felt in my 47 years. We stop and I stretch my legs, with the cramps easing...that is until we try to pedal again. The cramps are bad enough that I'm having difficulty even unclipping from the pedals, much less considering getting my leg over the top of the bike to dismount. What to do, what to do???...so I hollar out to my copilot to pedal while I steer with my legs stretched out to the sides. Now I've got a real dilemma: be conservative and smart and turn around to go back to the rest stop 300-400 yards away or try to ride 10-12 miles further and hope the cramps ease up and we don't end up stranded in the middle of corn and tobacco fields in 100+ degree heat. Time to "call a friend", I say back to my wife, "what do you want to do?", "let's see if we can press a little further and see if the cramps ease up." Sure enough after about 5 minutes of cheering on her part, easy pedalling and me praying and singing made up songs to God like a little kid, the pain slowly eases from my legs and off we go. From my perspective 60 miles should have been the end of our journey that day. We struggled through several other rest stops with cramps that were less severe if I didn't sit down. I'm trying to drink gatorade, eat bananas, raisins and pickles to get my potassium and sodium up. At mile 86 (our last rest stop), I'm actually feeling some better, but hot and really tired (and still no urine out). I'm searching for electrolytes, but the 800-900+ riders before us had depleted all of the gatorade, pickles, trail mix, bananas...there was only water and some cookies. I'm feeling a little desparate at this point, now with only 3-5 riders behind us and 14 miles ahead. I finally spotted a gallon jar that held the pickles served earlier, swallowed hard and in a soft voice asked for a cup of pickle juice. The volunteer pours me up about 6 ounces of the green stuff which I start to drink and discover that it is now at the same temp as our surroundings......desparate times call for desparate measures. I found a tablet to mix with my water to add electrolytes, poured cold water over my neck/shoulders and off we go. We get to the last 3 miles to discover what felt like a one mile plus shallow but constant UPHILL grade with us running on fumes. If my cadence went above 45 rpm, my legs would start to cramp again and my wife was DONE. Along the last 25-30 miles we met a young man obviously fit, but emotionally spent who was ready to catch a ride with the support (SAG: support and gear) truck. We had some great conversation which included him being miserable riding by himself. He joined us as we poked along 8-15 mph, getting a little more positive with each section we reeled in.
The good news: we finished the ride being some of, if not the last ones in. As we wearily rolled into the parking lot, there stood two of my children whooping and hollaring for us and grinning ear to ear. Eventually we got the bikes loaded into the truck and off to Longhorn steakhouse for a celebratory supper. It was as much or more of a joy to hear the tales of my kids and their 33 mile ride together encouraging each other and bragging on each other than it was to survive our 100 miles. Definitely a proud moment as a parent. As a side note, my wife at 105 pounds burned over 2,000 calories and me at 180 burned over 3,000 according to our Polar monitors.
The bad news: my hamstrings are fairly messed up. I'm hoping and praying I can rehab them enough for our MS 150 ride this weekend. Urine didn't come until 3-4 hours AFTER we finished the ride.
The quick life lessons: 1) On a possibly hot day, PRE-hydrate thoroughly and hydrate like mad during. I thought I was drinking enough, but apparently not leading to some dehydration and severe cramping as a result. 2) Get PLENTY OF REST before a big physical event. 3) Pace yourself! I planned to take it easy at first and build up slowly if we felt good, but fell prey to the excitement of the moment. 4) Don't stack big physical events too close together.
I've known all of these things for years, and have usually followed them closely. I'm now paying the price for not heeding my own advice. Hopefully with rest, stretching and anti inflammatories we will be ready for a somewhat slower than planned pace ride in Tunica this coming weekend......stay tuned!
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