My Quest for the R-12

To earn the R-12, you need to do a 200K or more every month for 12 consecutive months. I just finished number 3 and I was the first rider to do Jobob's permanent. :D

It's a really nice route. A lot of climbing - my Polar showed over 7,000 feet. But it is spread out and none of the climbs are super long. I thought the worst one would be Pig Farm. I had only been out there two times prior to this ride and had been miserable climbing it both times. There is no shade out there and yesterday was pretty hot. I tried to minimize my suffering by buying a bag of ice to fill my bottles with at the checkpoint prior to this climb. Having music helped too. I listened to Van Halen's "Right Now" and then "Anything, Anything " by Dramarama. Good rocking out songs! And surprisingly, the climb wasn't that bad. I think the worst climb was the last hill getting out of Martinez. Luckily it was shaded, but it was one of those straight hills where you can see just how far the top is and that it's not getting closer. :p

The last 15 miles were pretty flat, but I was getting tired. I started singing out loud to entertain myself. I'm a really bad singer but singing "Live Like You Were Dying" helped keep my spirits up.

The Thump Pros are great. You can hear the music, but you can also hear what's going on around. The batteries don't last long enough for a ride of this length, so I only used them on the climbs. I was thrilled that I had battery life to get from the last climb to the end.

My HR never got very high. I'm use to seeing a max in the 180s. Yesterday's max was only 171. I did my long run on Saturday - 7.4 miles, the farthest I have ever run in my life! I could feel my legs getting more fatigued on the climbs than usual.

It was a tough weekend for my legs. They are getting today off.

V.

I, on the other hand, was the first rider to DNF on jobob's permanent. :D

I started out strong & feeling fine. V and I left the start point in Dublin at about 6 am, so it was very pleasantly cool out and the car traffic was about nil.

Calaveras Road was lovely. Along the way we passed a couple of deer, some quail darted across the road in front of us (quail are so doofy, they always make me laugh), and lots of turkeys - the bird kind, that is.

I had a flat after about 30 miles, and I discovered my Topeak road morph frame pump wasn't working properly - I could pump my tire up to only about 60 psi or so. Which was fine on the flatlands, but Palomares Road was a truly painful slog, I have never felt so awful going up that, I felt I was pushing a tank uphill. (yeah, yeah, some of you might think I already push a tank uphill, but trust me, this was worse).

At the top of Palomares, I asked a passing rider if I could use his frame pump. He galantly pumped up my tire, and then while disengaing the pump he broke off the valve. Ooops. Glad I carried 2 spare tubes. He galantly changed the tubes and inflated the new tube with a CO2 cartridge. I halfway expected it to explode, but yay, no more disasters.

I was only at about mile 50 and I was getting stressed out knowing that I was riding with a defecto pump and no good tubes left. And the way my luck was going I knew that was going to come back and bite me, so I managed to get a hold of Lee who met us out at the golf course and gave me his (working) frame pump and a couple of spare tubes for the rest of the ride.

We had been wasting a lot of time with all my pump/tube mishaps so I made V go on ahead to the next checkpoint.

Climbing up Redwood Road wasn't near as bad as Palomares, but by then I was really off my game and feeling stressed and lousy and it was getting hot. I was climbing so slowly that I was worried that I wouldn't make the next checkpoint in Moraga in time. Then eventually I decided this was BS, I just wasn't enjoying the ride any more. So I phoned ahead to V as soon as I got a cell signal at the top of Pinehurst Road and told her to just keep going, I was going to bail when I reached Moraga.

Once I reached Moraga I bought myself a Diet Coke at the Safeway - and wouldn't you know it, even with my glacial climbing and dawdling on the phone the receipt showed I made it 10 minutes before the checkpoint closing time. :o

I hung out in a shady spot waiting for Lee to pick me up. And I started feeling a lot better. I shouldn't have been so hasty to bail, I suppose, particularly since almost 3/4 of the climbing was done. I couldn't keep going since I had already called Lee to come & get me. Oh well, lesson learned.

Lee & I drove out towards Martinez to check on V. She was looking strong and going great. freak. We met up with her at the train station and chatted a bit and then we went on our ways.

I might give this a try again next weekend. With a working frame pump. ;)

71 miles
4800 ft of climbing
slower than snot. :cool:

Learn that lesson :) Still... stopping when you still could do more *does* have certain advantages IMO than making the wrong decision the other way. 71 miles with a ton of climbing is good prep for next week, when you can "race" your this week performance :)

I almost turned a century into a 200K yesterday - got to 110 miles at my driveway- but decided that it was late and that owuld be being a slave to numbers... I'm seriously considering doing my own completely unofficial R-12.