Ready or Not...

My last long weekend...Since I screwed up my last long brick so terribly, I had the option of attempting it again (75/10) or doing a really long ride (130). The problem was that I wanted to do both for different reasons. I had an 18 mile run on Thursday, so attempting a long brick on Saturday would be tough. I hate doing long workouts on Sunday because I'm dead at work on Monday and I just barely get through Mondays as it is. I wanted to do the long ride because in previous years, I've only done 2 and I felt like doing 3 this year would give me a mental advantage of really knowing that the ride wouldn't be an issue, which I felt I especially needed after last years disaster in CDA. But then again, a long brick is a better simulation for race day.

What to do, what to do? I was starting to wonder if I should just stay in bed and sleep instead. It sounded so tempting.

In the end I went with the long ride. I had essentially done a long brick at 70.3 and that was quite successful. And I have another shorter brick this weekend. And Saturday promised to be the slightly cooler day.

I got off to a later start thanks to being out a little too late the previous night and having one too many glasses of wine with my sister. It seems that 1 is my limit these days and being how tired I am all the time, I really need to stick with that limit. Despite all the talk about chip sealing up around Carter and Horsetooth, I decided to chance it and head up that way primarily because I didn't feel like trying to find a new route. This was a no brainer and I knew where all the water stops were and it just seemed like a hell of a lot of work to try and find something else. And did I mention how tired I already was? It seemed more important that I go to bed rather than spend who knows how long fighting with MapMyRide.com...Does anyone else have this problem where it adds miles on for you, as though it's sending you back and forth on the same section of road 100 times? This only seems to happen for longer routes and god forbid you try and overlap and instead of plotting the point, it decides that you really want to add a marker instead. It can get frustrating to say the least. So braving the chip seal seemed much less stressful.

I got off to a great start. My legs actually felt good. It had been a while and my last few long rides had all started out with me feeling very sluggish and just not quite right. I was surprised considering my long run two days before but I wasn't about to complain. It was still early...Carter Lake came and went and then the oil started. The signs said "Fresh Oil on Road" and I wasn't quite sure what that meant. I had read about it and envisioned something else entirely. First of all, the road was still smooth and I sort of expected the oil stage to come after everything else. Instead, it looked more like a stage 1 thing. The road was just a lot darker and a lot dirtier. There was a ton of what I assume was gravel on the shoulders. I should know considering that I brought half of it home with me stuck to arms, legs, bike, clothes, water bottles, and so on. Fortunately there's not a ton of traffic so I could get away with riding more towards the middle of the road which seemed to have a lot less stuff on it. It was also pretty sticky, but it wore off of my tires quickly - it was just the rest of me that was a mess for the rest of the day.

There's one hill around mile 45 or so that doesn't look bad, but for whatever reason kills me and I immediately have to drop to a super easy gear and still seem to struggle. It didn't help that two people were riding down the hill a the same time and one of them screamed at me to get in the drops. That's easy to say when you're flying down hill, but when you're already in an easy gear and struggling, yeah right. I discovered on the way back that it's a 7% grade, so I felt a lot better for struggling and really just wanted to punch the woman screaming at me.

There was a cute little fair going on in Masonville with a sign that said "Come Meet the Alpacas". I was so tempted to stop. They're my favorite. I decided maybe on the way back (sure) and kept going. Then the chip seal started. It actually was much smoother than it was a few weeks ago - at least the shoulder was. Overall, I couldn't complain. I really had envisioned myself a riding tarball.

And then I started complaining. There's this other hill before the big climb up to Horsetooth that really doesn't look like a hill, but it is a long steady climb and goes on for miles. This is where I started questioning everything. I had planned on coming back the same way, which would be just as hilly, but at this point wasn't sure I'd make it. At this point I was starting to wonder if I'd even make it to Ft Collins. I was getting slower and slower by the minute. I thought I might have to ride back the easy way. I wanted to stop but somehow managed to convince myself that the end was just around the bend, which of course it never was. Until it was. And then I was find. I had no issue with the steeper climbs and soon found my way to my new favorite gas station in Ft Collins. I refilled my bottles and had a coke and part of a bagel. I pepped myself up for the ride back deciding that I needed to go back the hard way - more climbing would be better for Wisconsin.

Heading back immediately starts off with some tough climbs back up and around Horsetooth. But I did actually feel much better and actually passed some people. Yes, passed. And they were riding bikes too. It was final climb before the now long gradual downhill that nearly killed me on the way out that I realized how hot it was getting and I knew then that it was going to be a rough trip back into Boulder. For once the wind didn't really bother me as it was cooling me down a little and I had already resigned myself to riding a little slower. Back over the chip seal. Past the alpacas (I didn't stop). Through the oil fields. And then Carter Lake.

I have never ridden up the back side of Carter Lake and it was sort of haunting me for much of the ride. But since I was actually feeling okay on the ride back I had somehow managed to tell myself that it would be fine. Ha! Clearly I was delirious! It worse than sucked. It hurt like hell. I thought I was dying. I was questioning my sanity. And it really seemed to never end. And let's remember that I am now probably around mile 80 or so of my ride so I'm hot and tired too. I did not see a single other person heading up the hill. I determined at this point that I truly was insane. What the hell was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that I needed water and I really needed to pee and Hygiene was a little too far away.

After what seemed like an eternity (and I'm sure it was close), I made it to the top. I stopped by the marina to fill up and use the bathroom. Only it was locked. There were two rangers there telling me that I really didn't want to go in there. They emphasized "really" multiple times so I took there word on it. They said there was another bathroom way across the really rocky parking lot, the risk of killing myself trying to walk across in bike shoes seemed very likely so I decided I really didn't need to pee that badly. Besides, relatively speaking, I wasn't far from home. And so back in the saddle.

Aside from witnessing the second half of a car crash (I saw the second car go off the side of the road down a really steep hill really fast that in such a manner that you would never intentionally do before realizing what was going on), the rest of the ride was uneventful (which was fine with me as the crash kind of freaked me out a bit as I had to ride over bits and pieces of broken car). I really had no idea what time it was but I was seeing fewer and fewer cyclists (other than those doing whatever ride was going on) so I figured it was probably getting pretty late. I had another quick stop in Hygiene, which is now a required stop for me. It was 3:30 - I was assuming closer to 5 as one tends to lose all concept of time during such a long-ass ride.

And then 10 years later, I was home. Actually, it wasn't that bad. Nothing was that bad after That Hill. I had the world's slowest transition and eventually made my way outside to do a very short, very slow run. And then I was finally done. Whew! I was glad it was over for many reasons. The main reason being that I'd only have to do one more long ride and that would be on 9/12. The other main reason was that now I could taper. I knew I was as ready as I was ever going to be and finally felt like I was actually ready.

So let the tapering begin...