Not-so-Terrible Terrible Two Adventure
Well, 2011 has been a pretty amazing year for me in the cycling department.
- I completed Devil Mountain Double century (DMD) back in April (206 miles, 20,000 feet of climbing) and knocked 3 hours of my last time for the ride, finishing an hour before my goal time. The ride felt easy (relatively speaking), which was astonishing.
- I completed a brevet series (200, 300, 400 and 600k rides). While I've done all the distances in the past, I'd never done them in the same year. My 200, 300 and 400k times were all substantially faster than when I had done the distances in the past.
- Last year due to work stress issues, I had given myself a year off cycling seriously or worrying about weight and fitness, and gained 10 - 15 pounds. Between December 2010 and April of this year, I decided the break was over and I (slowly and sustainably and with the help of the new WW program) lost 30 pounds. That has made a tremendous improvement in my riding and my speed. I built up a training schedule that worked brilliantly for DMD and the brevet series.
So after DMD, I decided to register for the Terrible Two (TT) double century, which is 200 miles and 15,500 feet of climbing. I had never done the TT before, because I always felt that the aggressive time cut offs would put it beyond my reach. I am a steady and stubborn climber, but not “speedy”. DMD is more generous with the time cut offs than TT and even in my slow DMD ride, I was never in jeopardy of making the time cut offs. For TT the cut offs are much more difficult to make. Given my DMD time, I felt I had a real chance to complete the ride. I was both right and wrong.
Yesterday, I did 130 or so miles of the TT before having the most spectacular bonk in my cycling life. My husband rode with me. We made the time cutoffs and would have finished (my training partner finished the ride), but I had some issues which led directly to the meltdown. The bonk was so bad I was dizzy and lightheaded. I was sleepy on the last descent I did before I stopped (before the Rancheria Wall for those of you who know the route), and as soon as I got off the bike and sat down, I had bed spins. It was absolutely unsafe to continue in the condition I had gotten myself in. I completed 132 of 200 miles and, more significantly 11,300 of 15,500 feet of climbing.
It’s funny, I haven’t done any sort of “ride report” on any of my successful rides this year, and here I am writing about failure. I feel that you learn more from failures than successes, and am writing this report more for myself so I can learn from my mistakes and finish this ride next year.
Thoughts on the TT/What Went Wrong or Right:
- TT Time cut offs: These seem daunting, but are doable if you don’t mess around and take advantage of working with people on the flat sections. If you make the lunch cut off, you can likely make the rest of the cut offs. We had this nailed. Go us! :)
- Climbs: While the ride is objectively easier than DMD (less climbing overall) the ride is actually a lot harder than DMD for non-petite riders. :) The climbs are more relentlessly steep. DMD has only 2 climbs of note with sustained steepness (last part of Hamilton and Sierra Rd.) The rest of the DMD climbs are fairly gradual, though long. The TT climbs are almost all ridiculously and relentlessly steep. Accordingly, I didn’t have any trouble completing DMD with my compact double, but TT was a different story. I need to get a bigger cassette at the very least. And while the weight loss I have done this year has been great, 5 - 10 more pounds would make a huge difference. Improve gearing and weight for next year!!
- Don’t be a cheapskate: put in new contacts before big rides. After mile 80, I couldn’t see out of my contacts because they got so bleary. This was not safe, especially with the hairy descents. The inability to see made me seriously consider quitting two separate times (at the two last rest stops before my bonk). I was so distracted with not being able to see and thinking I was going to quit because of that, that I didn’t focus on fueling adequately at those last 2 rest stops. Rookie mistake!!
- Take tire pressure down about 5 pounds. The roads suck.
- Ride training focus: What I did this year worked great for DMD. However, I decided that I wanted to have it all and get my Super Randonneur award this year. That’s great and I’m glad I have it, but doing the 600k four weeks ago actually was a training set back for me. It took me a few weeks to fully recover from it and during all that time, I could/should have been focusing on targeted climbing rides. Next year, skip the 600k and add a couple of long climbing specific rides in May/June instead.
- Get your head on straight. All of this is so mental. I wasn’t having a great day in the morning, but was riding pretty solidly. But my husband made a comment or two about how I wasn’t having a good day and I let that get into my head and fester and convince myself I wasn’t having a good day. The lack of confidence built up and I didn’t jump in early enough to replace the negative self talk with a fighting attitude. (And not that he was being remotely negative - it was all how I interpreted it and allowed it to distract me and make me lose commitment.)
- Remember you’re going to cycle through being strong and not strong many times throughout the day. Again, I let the negativity steal focus. I actually started writing this “ride epitaph” in my head - the list above of things to change - 50 miles before I bonked. I hadn’t mentally committed to finishing the ride.
