Last Big Training Ride

This week my Death Ride team journey was staged out of Kentfield. The plan was to ride anything that went up in Marin County. The route map was 120 miles and 12,500' of climbing. The majority of the big climbs were in the first half of the ride.
It was a beautiful day and I felt good on my first trip up Mt Tam.



We had a few obstacles riding down to Muir Beach and climbing up towards Mt. Tam. First our descent towards the beach got interrupted by road construction which turned Team in Training into Team in Waiting as the road became a parking lot. Then on our journey back up we were slaloming the Dipsea Marathon participants who were running on the street downhill in our lane. I guess they believed they had the right-away.

There were a couple other comical situations that made for good post ride shares;-) I was feeling strong as we rolled through SAG 2 & 3. However, by the 3rd SAG our ride group that began with 7 was now just 3 of us. And our lone very motivated participant taken off while we were putting together the strategy for the people heading back.

We were about 20 minutes behind her and she was having an extraordinarily strong day. I think she must have been drinking out of G4's water bottles;-) We did our best to chase through strong coastal winds...however, my chase abilities are weak at best, sorry Coach. We hit Marshall Wall with still no one in sight! The winds were persisting, we were cold and I was ready to be done with this ride!



We motored to Wilson Hill and in the distance we finally spotted our head coach who was riding with our wayward teammate! It took awhile but we got caught them. To my surprise she had continued to get stronger and as we rolled onto Petaluma/PT. Reyes Highway she dropped all 3 of us as she geared up and broke through the wind...holy crap! That was deflating!

We all re-grouped at SAG 5 in Nicasio. I was feeling very sluggish as I rolled in and knew I needed to re-fuel. As soon as I stepped off Willie and walked up to the snack table my legs started to buckle, I was nauseous and the ball fields were spinning...uh oh! Thankfully there was a chair right there or I would have been on the ground. As I was trying to get Nicasio to stop spinning I heard "let's go, I'm ready"! That's when I needed to make a game time decision. She was having a great day and I wasn't going to be the anchor of the group. I hit a wall and I needed more time and fuel to get right. I called it...game over at mile 100 for me:-( I wasn't feeling well enough to even be pissed at myself.

My first season coach was the SAG and pumped some chocolate milk into me to make me start feeling normal again. I was feeling better as Willie and I got our Mini ride back to my truck.

I analyzed my ride on my drive home and this morning and all of the sudden it became clear. There were a few factors but my AHA moment suddenly hit me.I stopped all my normal ride habits when my focused changed! After SAG 3 I barely touched my water bottle. Climbing Marshall was the last swig I took (until chocolate milk) and I wasn't eating on the bike! I was so focused on fighting the wind, catching a rider and getting done that all my good habit disappeared!

Cycling 101 nutrition & fuel! I stopped taking care of me, so my body finally stopped...my dumb ass move #2 for the season! It should have been a ride I finished and now I know why I didn't:-( I made 100 miles and almost 10,000' but couldn't close the deal...another valuable lesson learned...the hard way.