After Croatan, I pretty much was unable to do any long rides (greater than 65 miles) until the end of April. My partner and I have merged residences! Packing and moving and then UN-packing has taken a toll on both of our free time schedules. The good thing is that we are getting there and the house is almost a home!
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| Moving Day - We are so cute! Photo Courtesy of Jamie |
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| This guy was SO adorable. Photo courtesy of Dane |
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| Having a great time and reminding everyone that "Flat Pedals Win Medals". Photo Courtesy of the talented Bruce Buckley |
Anyway, back to training. Since Croatan, I have actually only done three (EEK!) rides greater than 100 miles. I finished up April with a solo 104 mile mixed surface road where everything that could have gone wrong DID go wrong.
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| Well, at least it was an absolutely stunning day! |
*insert foreboding music here*
Well, things were fine for about 10 more miles or so. I stopped at a store in Round Hill to grab some junk food (salt and vinegar Pringles and powdered sugar doughnuts made slightly less bad by some orange juice!). I was sitting on the steps in the sun next to my bike shoving food in my mouth when all of a sudden I see something shoot straight up in the air and hear a hissing noise. This was followed quickly by a very wet SPLAT. I look over and my front tire is complete flat and there is a puddle of tire sealant on the ground next to it. WTF?!
Quick back story... A couple of months before, I had been riding out on the C&O canal with a teammate when I had somehow sliced my front tire. It apparently was a slow leak because I did not notice it until after I had left my teammate in DC and was on my way back across the river. I ended up dumping two full CO2 canisters in the front tire over an eight mile ride home to keep going (I had a tube, I am just lazy). When I got home, I unscrewed the valve core, dumped a small bottle of sealant in the tire, pumped it up, and it was fine. It sealed up and was fine. It even made it through Croatan with ZERO issues.
So now... The only thing I can guess is the heat somehow dislodged the sealant plug and the excess pressure spewed out a bunch of sealant. Hmm. Okay. I had three CO2 cartridges with me and a tube. Since my phone was dead, I did not want to use the tube in case something else went horribly wrong. I emptied a cartridge in the tire, it sealed and held air, so I finished my snack and got back on the bike. Literally a half mile down the road, sealant starts spewing out and I hear the tell tale "hiss...hiss...hiss...". I stopped, put my gloved finger over the hole (which, I may have forgotten to mention is TINY, by the way, less than a 2 mm slice on the center tread of the tire). It seals, so I keep going.
Unfortunately, the seal breaks over and over and over again. I am on the shortest gravel route back to Leesburg and luckily the tire holds most of the air, but sealant keeps spewing out. I ended up emptying two more CO2 cartridges before I made it back to Leesburg. On one of the last times I had to stop to place my finger over it to help it seal, I left one foot clipped in, lost my balance and fell over. Right smack in the middle of a gravel road. So glad no one was around to witness that.
At this point, I was just kind of done with my ride. I knew I was probably going to need to swing by a local bike shop and get another tube and more CO2 to finish the ride. I also wanted to try and get my phone charged so I could let Dane know what was going on. I decided to deal with the phone first and stopped by Loudoun Brewing Company to borrow a charging cable and have a beverage or two to help ease the pain of the day. Luckily, they came through! I spent an hour there charging my phone and enjoying two quite delicious beers.
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| As always, LoCo Brewing is there to save the day! |
The next Friday, I was finally able to take a day off work and go out with Pete on one of his Friday Hooky Rides. This was slated to be a 130 mile ride with some of the coolest folks around. The ride started out in Falls Church where I met up with Pete and a couple of other teammates (and Tim!). We rode out to Leesburg to meet the rest of the group. It was a bit humid in the morning and there was a LOT of pollen in the air. Even though the ride to Leesburg was all on pavement, my legs were covered in grit. Yellow grit.
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| Not sure this photo does it justice, but my legs were bright yellow. |
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| Hi Pete! Hi Trey! Hi Chris! (I think?) |
We stopped at Bluemont General Store and had junk food (homemade ice cream sandwiches!). We climbed a lot of fresh gravel. We stopped at my favourite winery (Zephaniah) and had some refreshments. It was there that I got the first glimpse of what my face looked like. I had walked into the restroom with the intention of washing the salt and grit off my face. This is what I saw:
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| It was worse in person, I looked like I had been working in the mines. |
After snacks, we headed back towards Falls Church and ended an amazing ride with amazing people. Thanks, Pete!
Dane was waiting for me on the patio when I got home and had to take pictures of my dusty, dirty self.
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| Yeah... It was totally worth it, though! Photo courtesy of Dane |
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| "Mud on your face, you big disgrace!" Photo courtesy of Dane |
The first two laps were great and I was passing a lot of folks on the one LONG climb out of the river valley. The temperature kept steadily increasing and more than half the course was in open fields. It was sunny with no break from clouds either. After my second lap, a gentleman had slid out and dislocated his ankle. I stopped to help out there and ended up taking about a 20 minute break until we were able to get him loaded on a medic unit and on his way to the hospital.
During my third lap, I started to lose momentum and seemed to struggle. I figured I needed more electrolytes and started eating the last pack of Shot Bloks I had on the bike at the start of my fourth lap. I was getting low on water and was planning to stop at the "almost" top of the climb at the water station to refill. Unfortunately, there was only Gatorade, and I did not realize it until my pack was almost halfway refilled. It was full strength, ick. While I was stopped, two teammates passed me and they were both looking pretty beat up as well.
After I finished complaining about Gatorade, I got back on the bike and kept climbing. By the time I reached the top, I had completely stopped sweating. I was getting stupid on the bike, too and making silly mistakes. I actually ended up having to get off and walk one of the steeper kickers because I hit a completely avoidable rock and came to a complete stand still. My head was throbbing and I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise. I knew this was going to be my last lap, even though we were only a little more than three hours into the race (oh, did I also forget to mention they started the race at 11:30, so it was a little before 15:00 at this point).
When I got back to the start finish, I almost passed out. I laid down in the shade and finally felt the massive amount of heat rash on my legs flair up. It felt like they were on fire. Luckily teammates Tania and Jason were at the team tent and helped with some cool water. It took about a half hour, but my body temperature came back down and I was able to function again. Dane came in shortly after that and said he was done, too. So we snacked on some salty chips and guzzled water until we decided that the river was too tempting to ignore. We both waded in and it felt amazing! I did end up placing first... Out of one.
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| Beer cheers for my win by default... Photo Courtesy of Dane |
There were several of us in the parking lot at the library using Facebook Messenger to chat, since it was raining too hard to get out of the cars or even roll the windows down! We decided to wait it out, and I am so glad that we did. The rain passed through around 10:20, so we only got delayed about a half hour. We had a great group of ladies and had an awesome group ride.
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| I actually remembered to take a picture! |
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| I did warn that our feet would get wet! Photo Courtesy of Anna |
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| Hi Goats! They were overly friendly and tried to eat my fingers! |
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| 42 miles, 3,800 feet of elevation, 1 creek ford, 7 awesome women! (Not pictured is Sarah, who had to bail early for a family commitment) |
I had grand plans for my last training ride before Dirty Kanza. I was planning on doing a 150 mile ride on some of my favourite Loudoun gravel roads. However, after that blazing hot Saturday, it has done absolutely nothing but rain. And rain, and rain, and rain some more. Over the past week, the region has received over 12 inches of rain. The rivers and creeks have overflowed their banks and there has been a lot of flooding, sink holes, and washouts. Pete and I were pretty optimistic and changed the route to avoid a lot of the low lying roads. We both knew to temper our expectations and expect some additional reroutes. We both went to bed Friday evening with the expectation that we would ride and see what happened.
My alarm went off around 4:00 Saturday morning. Lying in bed I could hear the heavy, steady rain falling. I grabbed my phone and got up leaving Dane to continue sleeping. I looked online and saw tons of reports of flooding, closed roads, and major detours. I made some breakfast and sat down to eat. Very rarely do I ever get a feeling of dread before a big bike ride (races, sure, but never just rides). That morning, I was not looking forward to getting on the bike. Luckily, Pete sent me a message at that very moment and very bluntly stated that he thought we should pull the plug. I told him that was the right decision. I am not 100% sure I would have come to that same conclusion on my own (I tend to be stubborn), so I am very thankful that Pete knows our limits and the limits of the roads out in Loudoun. It was just not safe to go out exploring gravel after storms like these. So, again, Thanks, Pete!
I ended up just staying home with Dane getting some projects done around the house that needed to be done. Luckily, a friend had a pavement ride planned the next day that would get me most of the miles that I wanted to do. So I made plans to head out early, meet him out in Loudoun and get about 120 miles in (on pavement... ugh). After a fun evening hanging out with friends at our local distillery (Falls Church Distillery, they are awesome), I got up early, pumped up my gravel tires to an unheard of pressure of 45psi, and headed out.
I met up with Chris and then teammate Mike, and a couple of other friends along the W&OD in Stirling/Ashburn. We then started a loop made up of all the hills, every last one of them. Everyone except Chris and I turned back about a quarter through the loop since they had other obligations. So Chris and I hung out and headed north on some rather lovely paved roads.
Things went along quite smoothly (ha... see what I did there?) until we turned onto Taylorstown Road. Taylorstown, from what I understand, is normally a very quiet road. However, when we turned, we noticed a LOT of traffic coming southbound that was backed up at the 4-way intersection. Hmm, we noted, that was odd. Well, turns out, Route 15 was closed at Point of Rocks and they were diverting traffic onto Taylorstown. Riding up the mountain with a steady stream of cars coming southbound and a back up of cars behind you northbound is INTENSE. Luckily, Chris is super polite and we both were able to pull off multiple times to let some cars go by. Most drivers were relatively nice and gave us plenty of room. However, there were a couple of token jerks that not only put our lives at risk, but their own and other drivers' as well. There are always a couple.
Once we got off Taylorstown, traffic calmed down for the most part. The rest of the route was pretty great as we climbed even more hills. It got pretty warm, so when we made our way back to Leesburg, I took Chris to LoCo Brewing for a couple of cold beverages. He had never been there before. We had good beer and headed back. It was a pretty good route for all pavement and I am super thankful that I did not have to do that alone (I probably would have just thrown myself over a bridge had I had to ride that much pavement solo!). So thanks, Chris!
Also, I completely failed to take any photos on that ride. So, consolation photo to give you an idea of the amount of rain we had:
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| That is a duck... In a flooded field. |
I am excited to see what happens this year. I am nervous about doing this by myself. Last year I had three amazing women with me the whole time. That comradeship is what helped all of us get through what is lauded as the hardest one day race in the US. I have goals that I would like to meet (and maybe even exceed). I have trained hard in the early part of the year to be stronger and faster. Life derailed things a bit, but overall, I do not feel like I have lost much fitness. I am ever thankful that Dane is coming down with me and running support. I feel like having him there is the biggest unfinished business I have out there. Of course, meeting my time goal is a pretty close second.
No more big rides for me until June 2nd. Next weekend will be spent mountain biking, relaxing in the woods, and hanging out with friends. I am looking forward to that more than I can put into words.
Lastly, before I head off to the sunflower state... A big BIG thanks to everyone who has been supportive of this endeavour for the second year in a row. Bikenetic gets the most love since without them, I would never even have considered that I could do something like this once, much less twice. So thank you Jan, Helen, Pete, Stearman, Jacob, Ken, Brian, Jamie, and whoever I am missing. You guys are the epitome of what a bike shop should be.
Team Bikenetic is a close second because no matter what craziness I do, someone is almost always willing to come along with me. And if not, they are always quick to check in and see how things went. You guys are the BEST!
Dane gets his own shout out for being my support, not grumbling too much when I get up stupid early on the weekends to do long rides, and for ensuring my dogs are getting lots of love when I am out on the bike. Seriously, how did I get so lucky?
Team-Not-Team gets a thanks for being supportive, inclusive, and letting me lead them to certain death on gravel and mountain bike rides. I can not wait to get back out there with you ladies and ride!
Lastly, my mother... Thanks for being the best puppy sitter EVER!
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