I’ve Already done My Etape
For all of my 3 faithful readers, I apologize for not giving an update lately. The day is almost here:
184 KM and over 9000 feet of climbing. Robert and I did the Cherohala Challenge this past weekend. It starts in Tellico Plains Tennessee and rides up through the Smokey Mountains and up the Cherohala Skyway. This had been on my calendar to be my major “test run” for the Etape. It is virtually the same distance as the Etape and the climbing, if not as severe, is close.
One thing I’ll say about my approach to this ride is that I mentally treated it as nothing more than a training ride. It wasn’t an event that I looked forward to for any other reason, not like when I go to Bridge to Bridge and rent a hotel or stay in Chetola Resort for 2 or 3 days and the whole family comes along and it’s a big happening after which I feel like I have just accomplished something big. No, the Cherohala Challenge was just a training ride. And I didn’t treat it with the proper respect.
It took about 3.5 hours of driving time to get there from my house. I left work a little early Friday and went home to pack, then left to pick up my brother Robert in Murfreesboro. I wasted time packing and didn’t leave home until about 5PM or rush hour. It took a long time to get to Murfreesboro because of the traffic. By the time we left Murfreesboro, it was probably 6:20. Then we stopped in Chattanooga for a high quality dinner and that killed an hour. At about 11:30 PM (we lost an hour in time change) we arrived at our hotel in Sweetwater, Tn. which was about 22 miles from the start of the ride the next morning. I set the alarm clock for 5am ensuring not enough sleep. I also need to mention that the night before I stayed up until 1:30am and only got about 4.5 hours of sleep. All of this is not necessarily an excuse for how poorly I did on the ride which you will read about later, but, just to highlight my lack of proper preparation which I hope not to repeat in France. That is, if I even go to France.
Robert and I arrived at the start about 6:30am and got our bikes and ourselves ready. There seemed to be only about 200 -300 people there total. I had expected more, but, this ride has only been hosted for about 7 years so maybe it hasn’t matured. They had limited the entries to 500 anyway but didn’t get near that. As I am pulling up to the start line an official noticed I didn’t have a helmet on. I had to race back to the car and get it. The ride started and luckily I came back into the peloton after the start right as Robert was leaving. I don’t remember much about the first section of 40 miles or so. It was rolling hills like around Nashville, nothing special. There were some scenic portions, lakes, and what not. I did notice that my legs did not feel good. They didn’t feel bad, just not strong like I would expect after two days off the bike. I attributed that to little sleep. And maybe the 3 hour ride through the hilly Percy Warner park on Wednesday was too hard. Anyway, no big problems. At around 45 miles I knew there was a hill as I had looked at the profile. It appeared to be a steep hill but not too long, maybe 1-2 miles .I thought this would be a good preview of the real mountains in terms of slope if not distance. Then the real mountains started at 62 miles maybe.
So at about mile 42 we hit the first “preview” hill. It kicked up and was fairly steep. I started in my small chainring and eventually went to the lowest gear I had. This means I am moving real slow. Robert didn’t have as low a gear as me but his seemed pretty low for a double. He may have a 28 in the back. Well, the hill kept going after 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles, 5, 6. I told Robert I had not even considered this section as anything difficult but we were climbing more than I had all year. This was over three times longer than Monteagle Mountain and just as steep! What was the real climbing going to be like? I was getting worried. Meanwhile, Robert seemed to have no difficulty on the climb. He had ridden an easy 53 two weeks ago, 83 last week, and this was an insane 115 mile mountain ride. Was he going to finish with only 750 miles in his legs so far this year? We finally hit a pretty big downhill and then were punished for that with another 4-5 miles up until we reached the Tail of the Dragon rest stop. I guess we had just ridden the Tail of the Dragon. It had taken us about 3:15 and we were at mile 54. I might mention that for the first 35 miles or so we averaged about 19 mph riding in the pack so we had a good start on time. I felt pretty tired at this point though. At the rest stop one of the volunteers said we had a big downhill followed by about 10 miles of flats and then……..then the ride starts! What?
We went down that hill for about 3 miles into a scenic valley next to a river and a dam and we settled in on what appeared to be a flat road. I was looking forward to about 10 miles of flats; however, I noticed my legs were incredibly tired feeling. I mentioned to Robert that it felt as if I was pedaling through water or underwater. We were going about 11 mph and it just didn't make sense. At this point Robert and I were riding alone. Robert said he felt the same and commented that no one was catching us from behind so we must not be the only ones going slowly. These flat roads were more like rollers with a couple of little climbs as I recall.
Finally we reach the 64 mile rest stop and fuel up and eat. They have all kinds of junk food at these rest stops. Cookies, tortilla chips, home made chocolate graham things, moon pies, etc. They also have apples, bananas, Powerade, nuts, and other fruit but I am surprized at all of the junk food. I can't really eat the junk food stuff without fearing I'll get sick. I had put a lot of hammer Gel in a water bottle straight and was hoping for that to be my main fuel along with bananas. This was the last rest stop before the real climbing was supposed to begin. They told us there was another stop 10 miles up the mountain. So we left.
Quickly, we got to the hill although it was about a mile or so away. I tried to use something other than my smallest gear in the triple but found myself spending more and more time there. The hill just kept going and going and going. The road would twist and turn and I would look hopefully around each corner for a flat section to give me a rest. It never came though. Around every turn was more up. Somewhere on this climb I took a drink from my hammerGel waterbottle and it tasted foul. Not because of heat because this was pure HammerGel. It tasted like it was going bad. I don't know if that was the case or not but my stomach was also getting sick. I decided not to drink any more HammerGel and try to live off bananas and water the rest of the way. I had one banana and ate that on the climb and I had plenty of water but I am sure I didn't drink enough on the climb. Anyway, meanwhile, Robert was riding effortlessly and waiting on me the whole way. He was striking up conversations with people and riding like he was on a 15 mile recovery ride through the park. I realized that this confirmed my theory that Robert needs only half the miles in him as I to equal my riding ability. In fact, he probably had over half the distance I had ridden this year. So, that meant, by my theory, he would be stronger, and he was. One thing I will say is that Robert definitely ate more than me the whole way. I mean he was eating peanut and jelly sandwiches like popcorn, eating crackers, drinking Powerade, bananas, grapes. Much more than me at every rest stop. I think I definitely need to eat more but I am worried about my stomach issues. And when the stomach is sick, I don't want to eat or drink. Well we kept going and going up this never ending hill and it got steeper as we went. At the 10 mile mark there was no rest stop. I was angry they had lied about where the rest stop was. After maybe another 1.5 miles we did finally get to the rest stop but I was sick to my stomach. I had to rest a long time to recover. We were at about 75.5 miles into the ride and it had taken maybe 6.5 hours of actual on bike time and another hour off the bike. We stayed at this rest stop for 45 minutes until I recovered enough to go on. People at the rest stop said we had between 5 to 10 miles before the summit after which it was almost all downhill with a couple of bumps in the road. I asked people who had done the ride last year how much further to the top and one guy said 5.6 miles, another said 8. What is wrong with these people? At 5 mph, that's a difference of 29 minutes of pain? How can they not know the exact distance? My cursory glance of the profile suggested we had 8 miles to summit. Another 8 miles of this brutal slow climbing on a sick stomach. I tried to eat more and got some packs of peanut butter crackers and a couple more bananas to take with me. I also broke down and, at the risk of getting sick, had some cold lemon Powerade. It tasted really good.
We finally made it to the summit after I had to stop one more time to eat. They took pictures of us at the 5000 feet mark (81 miles) where I was about gone. They had another rest stop at the summit and we stopped before hitting the big downhills. Supposedly the difficult climbing was over. We did go down some huge hills and finally started to make some good time however, at mile 88, we paid for those downhills with another climb. Now this was supposed to be nothing, but, it was a bigger climb than I can find anywhere around where I normally ride. In fact, it was about like climbing Monteagle Mountain, the mountain I had been so afraid of a couple of weeks ago. I was now angry at the motorcyclist who had told us we had no significant hills left. And then at mile 94, all my energy drained, I see the road up ahead kick up in what looks like the final scenes of the movie The Perfect Storm after the fishing boat crew had just weathered a horrendous storm. The sea became calm and by some miracle it looked as if they were out of the storm and would survive until they see a 150 foot wave rise up in front of them that was to be their doom. The captain’s words rolled through my head when I saw that hill at mile 94: “She’s not going to let us out”. After that hill I was convinced that the final 3 miles would be a 9% climb even though the profile showed nothing. Robert must have thought I was nuts by then.
So we finished. 115 miles, 10 hours, 11.5 mph (too slow for the etape elimination checks). 14 mph in on bike time and off the bike for almost 2 hours. Can’t do that in France.
184 KM and over 9000 feet of climbing. Robert and I did the Cherohala Challenge this past weekend. It starts in Tellico Plains Tennessee and rides up through the Smokey Mountains and up the Cherohala Skyway. This had been on my calendar to be my major “test run” for the Etape. It is virtually the same distance as the Etape and the climbing, if not as severe, is close.
One thing I’ll say about my approach to this ride is that I mentally treated it as nothing more than a training ride. It wasn’t an event that I looked forward to for any other reason, not like when I go to Bridge to Bridge and rent a hotel or stay in Chetola Resort for 2 or 3 days and the whole family comes along and it’s a big happening after which I feel like I have just accomplished something big. No, the Cherohala Challenge was just a training ride. And I didn’t treat it with the proper respect.
It took about 3.5 hours of driving time to get there from my house. I left work a little early Friday and went home to pack, then left to pick up my brother Robert in Murfreesboro. I wasted time packing and didn’t leave home until about 5PM or rush hour. It took a long time to get to Murfreesboro because of the traffic. By the time we left Murfreesboro, it was probably 6:20. Then we stopped in Chattanooga for a high quality dinner and that killed an hour. At about 11:30 PM (we lost an hour in time change) we arrived at our hotel in Sweetwater, Tn. which was about 22 miles from the start of the ride the next morning. I set the alarm clock for 5am ensuring not enough sleep. I also need to mention that the night before I stayed up until 1:30am and only got about 4.5 hours of sleep. All of this is not necessarily an excuse for how poorly I did on the ride which you will read about later, but, just to highlight my lack of proper preparation which I hope not to repeat in France. That is, if I even go to France.
Robert and I arrived at the start about 6:30am and got our bikes and ourselves ready. There seemed to be only about 200 -300 people there total. I had expected more, but, this ride has only been hosted for about 7 years so maybe it hasn’t matured. They had limited the entries to 500 anyway but didn’t get near that. As I am pulling up to the start line an official noticed I didn’t have a helmet on. I had to race back to the car and get it. The ride started and luckily I came back into the peloton after the start right as Robert was leaving. I don’t remember much about the first section of 40 miles or so. It was rolling hills like around Nashville, nothing special. There were some scenic portions, lakes, and what not. I did notice that my legs did not feel good. They didn’t feel bad, just not strong like I would expect after two days off the bike. I attributed that to little sleep. And maybe the 3 hour ride through the hilly Percy Warner park on Wednesday was too hard. Anyway, no big problems. At around 45 miles I knew there was a hill as I had looked at the profile. It appeared to be a steep hill but not too long, maybe 1-2 miles .I thought this would be a good preview of the real mountains in terms of slope if not distance. Then the real mountains started at 62 miles maybe.
So at about mile 42 we hit the first “preview” hill. It kicked up and was fairly steep. I started in my small chainring and eventually went to the lowest gear I had. This means I am moving real slow. Robert didn’t have as low a gear as me but his seemed pretty low for a double. He may have a 28 in the back. Well, the hill kept going after 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles, 5, 6. I told Robert I had not even considered this section as anything difficult but we were climbing more than I had all year. This was over three times longer than Monteagle Mountain and just as steep! What was the real climbing going to be like? I was getting worried. Meanwhile, Robert seemed to have no difficulty on the climb. He had ridden an easy 53 two weeks ago, 83 last week, and this was an insane 115 mile mountain ride. Was he going to finish with only 750 miles in his legs so far this year? We finally hit a pretty big downhill and then were punished for that with another 4-5 miles up until we reached the Tail of the Dragon rest stop. I guess we had just ridden the Tail of the Dragon. It had taken us about 3:15 and we were at mile 54. I might mention that for the first 35 miles or so we averaged about 19 mph riding in the pack so we had a good start on time. I felt pretty tired at this point though. At the rest stop one of the volunteers said we had a big downhill followed by about 10 miles of flats and then……..then the ride starts! What?
We went down that hill for about 3 miles into a scenic valley next to a river and a dam and we settled in on what appeared to be a flat road. I was looking forward to about 10 miles of flats; however, I noticed my legs were incredibly tired feeling. I mentioned to Robert that it felt as if I was pedaling through water or underwater. We were going about 11 mph and it just didn't make sense. At this point Robert and I were riding alone. Robert said he felt the same and commented that no one was catching us from behind so we must not be the only ones going slowly. These flat roads were more like rollers with a couple of little climbs as I recall.
Finally we reach the 64 mile rest stop and fuel up and eat. They have all kinds of junk food at these rest stops. Cookies, tortilla chips, home made chocolate graham things, moon pies, etc. They also have apples, bananas, Powerade, nuts, and other fruit but I am surprized at all of the junk food. I can't really eat the junk food stuff without fearing I'll get sick. I had put a lot of hammer Gel in a water bottle straight and was hoping for that to be my main fuel along with bananas. This was the last rest stop before the real climbing was supposed to begin. They told us there was another stop 10 miles up the mountain. So we left.
Quickly, we got to the hill although it was about a mile or so away. I tried to use something other than my smallest gear in the triple but found myself spending more and more time there. The hill just kept going and going and going. The road would twist and turn and I would look hopefully around each corner for a flat section to give me a rest. It never came though. Around every turn was more up. Somewhere on this climb I took a drink from my hammerGel waterbottle and it tasted foul. Not because of heat because this was pure HammerGel. It tasted like it was going bad. I don't know if that was the case or not but my stomach was also getting sick. I decided not to drink any more HammerGel and try to live off bananas and water the rest of the way. I had one banana and ate that on the climb and I had plenty of water but I am sure I didn't drink enough on the climb. Anyway, meanwhile, Robert was riding effortlessly and waiting on me the whole way. He was striking up conversations with people and riding like he was on a 15 mile recovery ride through the park. I realized that this confirmed my theory that Robert needs only half the miles in him as I to equal my riding ability. In fact, he probably had over half the distance I had ridden this year. So, that meant, by my theory, he would be stronger, and he was. One thing I will say is that Robert definitely ate more than me the whole way. I mean he was eating peanut and jelly sandwiches like popcorn, eating crackers, drinking Powerade, bananas, grapes. Much more than me at every rest stop. I think I definitely need to eat more but I am worried about my stomach issues. And when the stomach is sick, I don't want to eat or drink. Well we kept going and going up this never ending hill and it got steeper as we went. At the 10 mile mark there was no rest stop. I was angry they had lied about where the rest stop was. After maybe another 1.5 miles we did finally get to the rest stop but I was sick to my stomach. I had to rest a long time to recover. We were at about 75.5 miles into the ride and it had taken maybe 6.5 hours of actual on bike time and another hour off the bike. We stayed at this rest stop for 45 minutes until I recovered enough to go on. People at the rest stop said we had between 5 to 10 miles before the summit after which it was almost all downhill with a couple of bumps in the road. I asked people who had done the ride last year how much further to the top and one guy said 5.6 miles, another said 8. What is wrong with these people? At 5 mph, that's a difference of 29 minutes of pain? How can they not know the exact distance? My cursory glance of the profile suggested we had 8 miles to summit. Another 8 miles of this brutal slow climbing on a sick stomach. I tried to eat more and got some packs of peanut butter crackers and a couple more bananas to take with me. I also broke down and, at the risk of getting sick, had some cold lemon Powerade. It tasted really good.
We finally made it to the summit after I had to stop one more time to eat. They took pictures of us at the 5000 feet mark (81 miles) where I was about gone. They had another rest stop at the summit and we stopped before hitting the big downhills. Supposedly the difficult climbing was over. We did go down some huge hills and finally started to make some good time however, at mile 88, we paid for those downhills with another climb. Now this was supposed to be nothing, but, it was a bigger climb than I can find anywhere around where I normally ride. In fact, it was about like climbing Monteagle Mountain, the mountain I had been so afraid of a couple of weeks ago. I was now angry at the motorcyclist who had told us we had no significant hills left. And then at mile 94, all my energy drained, I see the road up ahead kick up in what looks like the final scenes of the movie The Perfect Storm after the fishing boat crew had just weathered a horrendous storm. The sea became calm and by some miracle it looked as if they were out of the storm and would survive until they see a 150 foot wave rise up in front of them that was to be their doom. The captain’s words rolled through my head when I saw that hill at mile 94: “She’s not going to let us out”. After that hill I was convinced that the final 3 miles would be a 9% climb even though the profile showed nothing. Robert must have thought I was nuts by then.
So we finished. 115 miles, 10 hours, 11.5 mph (too slow for the etape elimination checks). 14 mph in on bike time and off the bike for almost 2 hours. Can’t do that in France.
posted by Tormax at 7:44 AM
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