cyclefreaks

Wow, what a good ride. The weather was perfect, though I wasn't able to check it I'd say it was mid to high-80s with winds 6-10 mph.

We drove to Sapulpa on Saturday to stay with Cory's mom. Had the obligatory pre-race pasta dinner and went to bed early. Heat, not being in our own bed and the dogs kept us from getting much sleep. I don't think Cory got more than an hour and I'd guess I might have gotten 4. Not good.

The morning of the ride, we get up at 5:30, have some breakfast and get ready to hit the road. We took a wrong turn, then took another wrong turn but made it to Pryor, got the bikes unhitched and were in line ready to go about 1 minute before the start of the ride. The announcer says, "OK 55-ers! You've got one major hill and two major downhills, with the rest being rolling hills and flats. Go have a good ride!"

And we were off.

Now, in all my years of doing 5Ks and stuff, there's a method to the start line. Slow folks in back. That's about it. So, being a new roadie, and being almost late, we were in the back. MISTAKE. We are too fast and too impatient for that. The first 20 minutes was annoying as hell as we pedaled around trying to find a spot where we could maintain the pace we wanted. We finally did, and it was a great route.

About 16 miles in, it really starts to get a little hilly. We are riding up what look like winding lake roads if you know what I mean. Round and round we go, up up and away. Lots of the ride was a total asswhip, but we had no idea what was in store for us around mile 35...

We maintained a pretty good pace. If not for all the hills, we would have had record speed. We were traveling the flats around 18-20 mph comfortably. Low heart rate, felt great, etc. We were too slow for the "fast pack" and too fast for the majority of the people doing the ride. We passed A LOT of people. At one point, we're doing about 20 mph on a flat which we see is turning into a hill up ahead. We decide, "Let's go" so we went down into our drops and just kept working. We passed person after person climing that hill. We were going UPHILL at 2o mph, I specifically looked down to see at that moment because it felt incredible.

A few miles after that, we see painted on the road, "HARD HILL" with an arrow pointing forward. Uh-oh.

From the look of the map, it seemed like it would be short and steep. It wasn't. It was a long and winding road... up and up and up and up and no end in sight because it wound around and around... Cory is up ahead of me a ways, looking like he's going to make it. My arms and legs were trembling out of control. I wanted to stop, but I couldn't get my foot unclipped from my pedal so I had to keep pedaling. My heart rate was at least 180, though I was shaking and too afraid to turn my wrist to look at it. Finally, I got unclipped and stopped. I yelled at Cory to go ahead, keep going if he felt up to it, and he made it safely to the top.

Once I got off, I knew there was no starting again at that steep of an incline, so I walked a ways up to the top. I failed to conquer the mountain! Had I known how close I was to the top, I think I could have forced myself to keep going, just out of sheer determination, but I was shaking so badly and was unable to see how long the damn thing went on for... so I stopped and walked to the top. Luckily, they had strategically placed a rest area at the top, so I filled up with water, had a meatball and a cookie and felt great and we were on our way once again.

All-in-all, I'd say it was a great ride. Even though I didn't get to the top, Cory did, and I almost did, and my guess is I made it further than most of the women out there. None of the people that we passed going 20 uphill ever caught up to us, and we rode hard, we rode with guys who looked like they were on a team of their own. We did great, and all the rolling hills and wind and all of our training is paying off.

Now, the real question is, could we have gone for another 45 miles? That'll be the test come October 17.

Stats:

avg hr: 152
avg speed: 14.6
total riding time: 3:45
total time: 4:10
miles: 54.6

(If you'd like to check out the profile of our road, go here)